


to never be afraid again

by eurydicees



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Big Bang Challenge, Courage, Dark Carnival, F/F, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Pining, Superstition, Trapeze, anyways there's lots of yearning and also fire and also knives, some descriptions of blood/broken bones/burns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 21
Words: 47,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27290287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurydicees/pseuds/eurydicees
Summary: Somewhere, just beyond the city, lies a circus-- it's the kind of circus you run away to, and the kind of circus you never leave. Here, Mai throws knives and catches them in her heart, Ty Lee dances a thousand feet in the air, and the world falls apart, and they fall just a little bit in love anyways.AKA the circus AU where the show must go on, despite everything. Accidents, after all, come in threes.
Relationships: Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: ATLA Big Bang 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ahhhhhhhhh! this was written for the atla big bang 2020 and i'm uh. real proud of it. thank you to the amazing betas and artists, who i am endlessly grateful for and truly made this fic what it is. they and the BEAUTIFUL art are linked in [ this tumblr post. ](https://eurydicees.tumblr.com/post/633449667830693888/here-it-is-the-fic-ive-been-agonizing-over-for) thank you so much guys♡

It’s somewhere beyond the city limits that the world ends and the carnival begins. Take a left off of 5th Avenue and drive long enough to reach the freeway, then drive a little bit longer. It’s one of those attractions listed on the green billboards—CARNIVAL OF EMBERS, written in all capitals underneath an outline of a ball of fire, take Exit 44 and just go straight. You can’t miss it, even if you try.

The little access road splits off from the freeway and ends in these cold, ornate iron gates, the kind that are spiked at the top and curve into flowers around the locks. They open at 10:00PM exactly, no earlier and no later, when the torches that line the road burst alive and begin their crackling smiles. The torches lead cars to a sprawling parking lot lined only by grass and the ditches left by previous cars, and from there on, you walk into a place unnameable. 

The walking path winds through side attractions—water gun games and fishing for diamonds and balloon animals and ring tossing for teddy bears—until the downtrodden grass and laughing children have culminated in the big top. It’s a black and white tent, and if you squint, it feels unnervingly like the entrance to some kind of twilight zone. If you can ignore the bright lights and the shouts and the howls of wind, you might be able to hear Rodman Serling whispering the secrets of the carnival. 

Mai has always been the kind of person who listens closely. Too closely, her mother used to say. Close enough that she learns things that go unsaid in polite company and things that are only murmured between the lines and maybe after a few glasses of wine. Maybe that was why she had ended up at the carnival. She wanted something to drown out the noise of life with her parents. Big cities and big people had never been comfortable for her. 

Now, comfort meant the heat of fire on her skin, the way that the shadows shifted when she looked around an audience, the smell of sweat and popcorn and cotton candy, the beating of a drum, the slip of a knife through her fingers.

She’s one of the first acts to go on, after the diabolos and devil sticks and acro dancing and the color guards and the corde lisse. She doesn’t usually watch the other acts—she has each of them memorized as well as the actual performers do, and after a while, the thrill isn’t quite there anymore—before she goes on. She listens to the way the crowd murmurs and cheers and claps and the sound of stamping feet. Half of it is encouraging and half of it is the same drum beat that gives her a headache when she thinks too hard. 

The only act she watches is the trapeze, the flying. She knows the routine. She knows the music, she knows the dance. But still, she stands at the back and she watches. Everything else fades away, all of the secrets in her head and all of the audience’s gasps and all of the flashing lights turn to blurs at the back of her mind. The only things that matter, in those five minutes, are the crooning of a song and the bite of concentration in Ty Lee’s smile. 

Mai watches, following the line of Ty Lee’s body as she swings over the arena, following the stretch of her arms as she falls and catches Jin’s hands again, following the whip of her hair as she reaches from fingertip to bar to rope. She’s not sure if it’s beautiful or dangerous. If anything, it’s obsessive, the way she watches. 

The nights always pass quicker than Mai thinks they’re going to. She spends the days training or hanging out with the other performers, and the nights always come on so slowly, the anticipation growing into her stomach like a mold. It’s not good or bad necessarily, but the feeling is there. Each day is tinted with the same sense of waiting that comes with being a night performer. 

Her friends’ acts—Zuko, Azula, Ty Lee—are over before she can realize how much time has passed. The moon is beginning to shift slightly, the fog whispering over her light and slipping between stars. The darkness is fading, even before the sun makes herself known. 

The crowd begins to filter out of the tent and wander back to their cars, and Mai is left on the outskirts of the arena, waiting for them all to disappear. Sometimes, once they’re gone, she thinks she forgets that they were ever even there in the first place. 

“Like ghosts,” Ty Lee says, and Mai doesn’t have to turn to know that she’s standing at her side, still in her leotard and stage make up, watching as the arena empties. “Is that the right word, you think?” 

“Sounds about right,” Mai says, not looking over. She watches another family leave the tent, a mother ushering two small boys gripping the last wisps of blue cotton candy. “That’s almost all of them.” 

Ty Lee nods, shifting to stuff her hands in the pockets of a jacket she’s tossed over her costume, the chill of the night air beginning to sink in as the adrenaline fades away. As the lights go out and the fires turn to embers, the circus seems to wilt. The performers have wandered back to their trailers for the night, exhausted after another show. They’ll do it all again tomorrow. 

“Come out here and spot me,” Ty Lee says, breaking into Mai’s head with a bubble of a smile. “I messed up one of the jumps tonight, I want to run it again real quick.” 

Mai glances over at her, a single eyebrow raised. “Where’s Jin? Shouldn’t she be doing this?” 

“She already left for the night,” Ty Lee says, pushing open the tent canvas and stepping back into the ring, not waiting for Mai. She knows that Mai will follow. 

Mai does. The tent is almost fully empty now, the only people left being the carnival workers cleaning up the stands after a long night. The trapezes are already set up, towering over the two of them and reaching up to the very top of the tent. 

The trapeze that Ty Lee and Jin work on every night has been lowered to the start position—the bar hangs a few feet above face level, easy enough to jump and grab before it gets pulled up another hundred feet for their act. As Mai follows, Ty Lee reaches the trapeze and pulls herself up. 

She’s stronger than she looks, and she makes all of the movements look easy, despite how hard Mai knows that they are. Within seconds, Ty Lee is sitting on the trapeze swinging slightly as she waits for Mai to join her. 

“I’m definitely not qualified to spot you.” 

Ty Lee smiles at her, kicking her legs out and making the trapeze swing farther. “It’s like being on the monkey bars at the playground, don’t worry about it.” 

Mai reaches the trapeze, biting the inside of her cheek. The way Ty Lee looks at her—the corner of her mouth tilted up like that, her eyes bright in the arena lights, skin still flushed red from the exercise—makes Mai forget that she should probably be worrying about safety. 

“I’ve never fallen before,” Ty Lee says, looking down at her. She’s holding onto the cables as she swings, but her grip is loose and relaxed. “You know that.” 

“There’s a first time for everything,” Mai warns. 

Ty Lee just grins wider. “I just want to do some basic flips. Nothing too dangerous.”

“Fine,” Mai concedes. “What do you need me to do?” 

“You don’t really have to do anything, I just need someone to be able to run for help if something goes wrong.” 

“That’s real encouraging,” Mai says dryly. “Thanks, I feel so much better now.” 

Ty Lee laughs at that, and Mai feels that stupidly familiar burst of warmth in her gut when she hears that. She always gets so proud when she can make Ty Lee laugh. However easy it is and however often it happens, Mai’s chest doesn’t stop filling up in that bright, excited way that it does. She watches Ty Lee’s smile flash and thinks, _Oh. I made that happen._

“You have 911 on speed dial,” Ty Lee says, shifting positions, “that’s enough.” 

Mai rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t protest as Ty Lee lets herself drop slightly, legs going over the bar until her only connections are her hands, gripping the cables tightly. She lets herself hang there for a moment, Mai standing to the side and watching with slow breaths, until she pumps her legs forward, once, twice, and throws herself upwards. 

Ty Lee doesn’t experience gravity in the same way that other people do, Mai thinks, because this, here, is flight. This is a wingless girl tossing herself up and over, and flipping downwards. She catches herself by her ankles, which twist around the cables and keep her hanging on. 

Mai’s chest tightens, and she takes another deep, even breath. Ty Lee has never fallen before, and Mai figures she’s not going to start now. She arches upwards again, catching the bar with her hands. There’s no music, but there’s still a rhythm to the movements. Everything Ty Lee does is a dance or a song, one that only she knows the words to.

Holding the bar tightly, Ty Lee drops her legs down again and the trapeze swings wildly. Mai holds her arms tightly around her chest, resisting the urge to go over and steady the trapeze. Ty Lee doesn’t look over at her, her face one of concentration that she doesn’t get when she’s performing—she’s acting, then, but right now, this is just for Mai. Right now, she can be honest as ever, lips in a tight line as she swings forward again, hooking her knees over the bar this time. 

Ty Lee lets go with her hands, taking a deep breath and she hangs there, knees over the bar and the rest of her body just hanging in mid air. She glances around and finds Mai, a smile growing on her face. 

“See?” she asks, “Nothing to worry about.” 

The trapeze has slowed down, until Ty Lee is only a gentle kind of wave in the air, as if there were nothing more than a breeze in the tent. Watching her there, Mai remembers being a child on a playground, watching the girls who took gymnastics classes hang onto the monkey bars with their knees and waving at everyone upside down. 

“Show off,” Mai tells her, rolling her eyes. 

Ty Lee only laughs at that. She beckons Mai closer, and Mai doesn’t question it before walking over. “Give me a push.” 

Mai goes over, one hand reached out to touch the bar. She pushes slightly, Ty Lee seemingly weightless as the bars begin to swing again. Ty Lee inhales deeply as the trapeze swings, and she closes her eyes. It’s there, watching as she falls back, that everything seems to slow down. 

Ty Lee’s back is arched at just the right angle for her head to come up close at eye level, and the trapeze swings just slowly enough that Mai can watch as it goes back and begins to come forwards again, and Mai forgets everything just long enough for Ty Lee to smack right into her. 

Mai stumbles back, hand flying to her face as if to protect herself from a punch that already came, and Ty Lee makes a terrified kind of gasp as the trapeze moves in rapid, wild movements. Mai stumbles over something, and lands hard on her back, a dull kind of thud resounding through her bones. 

For a split second, she doesn’t register the pain. She just pulls her hand away from her face, the heel of her palm coming away bloody, and looks up at Ty Lee. Mai recognizes the blood dripping from her nose over her parted lips, slipping into her mouth, but all she sees is— 

Ty Lee, pulling herself over the bar and jumping to the ground— 

Ty Lee, letting go of the trapeze and darting over to her— 

and she’s something beautiful, something familiar, something comforting, something strong, and Mai forgets to breathe for a moment.

“Oh my God,” Ty Lee is saying, in breathless gasps, “are you okay? Oh, Jesus, Mai—”

“I’m okay,” Mai manages to stutter out. She touches her nose gingerly, but she doesn’t take her eyes off of Ty Lee. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” 

Ty Lee crouches in front of her, hand moving towards Mai’s face, and Mai just sinks into the touch, forgetting that she’s bleeding. Ty Lee brushes her thumb over the place between mouth and nose, her own fingers bloodying as she moves her other hand to Mai’s chin and tilts her head up slightly. Something in Mai is burning, heating up her skin and blood and making everything just a little bit blurry. She can’t quite catch her breath, her lungs coming up empty even as she inhales. 

“I’m good,” Mai says again, and Ty Lee just stares at her with wide eyes. “Really.” 

“Let’s get you to the physician,” Ty Lee says carefully, something choked in her voice. 

She reaches for Mai’s hand and pulls her up, and Mai goes willingly. She has always gone willingly when Ty Lee asks her to, and she’s never questioned it before. Ty Lee moves her hand around Mai’s waist as if to support her walking, and Mai wants to protest that she’s perfectly fine, it’s just a bloody nose, but then again, Ty Lee is holding her, and Mai doesn’t want her to stop.

Maybe she should have realized earlier. Maybe she should have thought twice about the way she looks at Ty Lee, the way she catalogues each smile and holds them close for when the day is going especially badly. Maybe she should have been just a little more introspective before her hands were quite literally covered in blood. 

Mai watches Ty Lee out of the corner of her eye and forgets about the ache at her face and back. It’s just blood and it doesn’t matter that much, no, Mai is much more distracted by the way Ty Lee is holding her, and maybe this is the thing she’s been missing for so long. Maybe this is the reason she watches the trapeze act every night, though she’s memorized every leap. Maybe this is the reason she can’t quite look away when Ty Lee smiles. Maybe this is why she feels so much warmer when Ty Lee is laughing. 

Mai is stumbling as she walks and Ty Lee is holding her. Mai tastes only copper and Ty Lee is looking at her. Mai is dripping blood but she’s in love with Ty Lee and despite the crimson on her mouth, yeah, that’s the only thing that matters.


	2. Chapter 2

The thing about the carnival is that it seems to never end. It winds in circles, a thousand hidden spots for shadows to slink into and kids to run away from and doubles back over itself, crossed paths with scorch marks on the ground. 

The show, too, never seems to end. Night after night, the show begins and the audience arrives. Even after the show ends, though, the performances go on. 

Mai sometimes thinks that her whole life is a show. 

A melodrama, perhaps, or some kind of soap opera that only airs at that time after late night and before early morning. It would be something with angry parents and high society, fire breathing and boiling shadows, sharpened knives and cutting blocks. It would be something with a stupid kind of love and a stupid kind of yearning. 

Mai has never thought of herself as the kind of person who _aches,_ not in the way everyone else seems to. She’s not the kind of person who falls in love easily— but how easy was this? How long had it been, before Mai put a name to the flickering flame in her chest? How hard had she pushed against it before realizing exactly what she was pushing against?

It had been, all at once, much too easy and much too hard. Ty Lee was so easy to love and Mai was so easy to forget. Part of her was sinking in the shadows, with just a trapeze to hold onto, and Ty Lee to catch her. 

Lying in bed at home, Mai stares at the ceiling and counts the cracks in the plaster and tries not to see the shapes in between the shadows. Ty Lee had dropped her off at her apartment after seeing the carnival’s physician—it was just a bloody nose—and Mai was left with the lingering smell of new car leather and the glitter of Ty Lee’s smile in the dark.

There were too many things in Mai’s head, all of them beautiful and all of them terrifying. 

Ty Lee, Mai realized, was most of them. She always had been. 

When they first met, Ty Lee leaping over the air and falling into Jin’s arms, Mai hadn’t been able to look away. There was no reason for it, other than it being captivating in a way that most things weren’t. But watching the jumps and falls, Ty Lee looked like some kind of angel, some kind of bird of prey. 

Even now, a year later, Mai watches Ty Lee fly and wonders what it feels like to fall. She watches Ty Lee pull herself around the trapeze with a kind of grace Mai barely knows on land and wonders what it feels like to hold her hand. 

Mai falls asleep still watching the ceiling, searching for some kind of answer. In the morning, she thinks, this aching in her chest will be gone. 

But when she wakes, passes through her morning, gets halfway through her bus ride, she remembers the way Ty Lee looked at her through a haze of sweat, and the aching is there again. Maybe it never left. Maybe it had always been there, even before last night. 

Ty Lee greets her at the bus stop, like their usual routine hasn’t drastically fallen apart just because of this new fire Mai feels, and smiles from her car as Mai walks over. She walks slowly, as if to procrastinate getting to the car, but the world doesn’t stop spinning because she’s burning. 

“How’s your face feeling?” Ty Lee asks, watching Mai climb into the car, dumping her bag in the back seat. 

Mai shrugs, slamming the car door closed. “Not that bad, actually.”

“Good,” Ty Lee says, shooting her another smile. “Alright, let’s get going.” 

The drive from the bus station—a block or so from the highway—isn’t long, but it’s long enough for Ty Lee to start chattering and update her on the very few things that had happened in their time apart. There’s the old woman in Ty Lee’s apartment building whose knee broke, the cat who ran away last week who was just found again, the state of Ty Lee’s tomato plant, and the true tragedy of the broken burner on her stove. 

Mai listens with a kind of patience she doesn’t have for anyone else. Boredom is something that has always been a kind of extra limb, but Ty Lee has a way of talking that makes people listen. Not in a vaguely worried way that Mai listens so closely to Azula, but in a captivated kind of way that actually cares about tomato plants. 

“It’s supposed to have six or eight hours of sunlight every day,” Ty Lee says, locking the car door and walking with Mai out towards the tents, “and I’m not sure how many it’s getting, since I’m not there, but it’s beginning to wilt…” 

Ty Lee sighs, and Mai tries not to smile. They walk in silence after that, Ty Lee lost in her head, thinking about tomato plants and sunlight, their feet sinking slightly into the dampness of mud and the footprints remaining for last night’s crowd. It only takes a few minutes to sign in and then go their separate ways, Ty Lee to the trapeze for warm ups and Mai to the storage units. 

Her collection of knives is extensive—Ty Lee used to joke that Mai cared more for taking care of the blades than she cared about throwing them—and Mai keeps them all carefully locked away at night, always counting and recounting to make sure they were all there. 

Her partner, Natsuko, is already waiting for her, leaning against the door with her arms crossed, clearly having been there for a while now. Natsuko nods at her as she walks over, standing up straight and dropping her arms to her side. She’s a slight kind of girl, and though Mai has known her for a few years now, they still don’t really know anything about each other. Mai is pretty sure that neither of them want to know each other beyond the ability to throw knives and not flinch. 

“Keys?” Natsuko asks, voice tight. 

She’s shivering, Mai notices, the first sign of autumn beginning to thread its way through the wind. Mai tosses a ring of keys over to her, and she catches them in one hand, the metal clicking against a ring she wears. 

In the storage unit, props and items for every show are leaning against the walls or resting on shelves, decorating the unit in a kind of shadowed cave of clownery and weaponry. It’s a strange combination; if Mai didn’t know where she was, she might have believed it to be some haunted and abandoned fairground. 

“How was your night?” Natsuko asks, the chill in her voice having faded now that the breeze isn’t so harsh against her face. 

Mai shrugs, stepping past a crate of juggling pins. “Good enough. Yours?” 

“Fine,” Natsuko says, but her voice trails off when she says it, like there’s something else there. 

Mai isn’t sure what she would want to talk about, but when she glances over, Natsuko is biting her lip, steadying her eyes very carefully against the wall of knives, using any distraction to keep away from Mai. She steps forward, beginning to pull down a decorative box-- more pretty than effective-- to carefully place the blades into. 

Mai watches her, eyes narrowed, until Natsuko snaps up. “Stop looking at me like that.” 

“Whatever,” Mai mutters, but she turns around to take down the other box. They would only be using one box for the show, but it was nice to have the other in case something happened. “Azula told me that Ozai would be inspecting the shows over the next few days.” 

“Good to know.” 

Mai nods, running a finger over the dull side of one of the knives. There’s a sleek edge to it, a glitter in the little sunlight that reaches them in the storage unit. There’s an engraving at the edge— _Never give up without a fight._

She straps the knife against a holster at her thigh; it’s not one that she will use for the performance, but she likes having it with her. It’s a reminder. 

Mai and Natsuko finish gathering the knives in silence before walking back to the tent where they’ll be performing. They do their warm up quickly-- Mai getting a feel for the weight of the knives, making sure that the right straps are in place so Natsuko doesn’t fall out of place and get hit. Mai doesn’t think it would be that big of a loss, not with how standoffish Natsuko is at the moment, but messing up tonight of all nights would do more harm that it would give a bitter satisfaction. 

The night begins to fall quickly. The darkness creeps over the sun with silent murmurs, the sun beginning to drip over the horizon like melting butter, like burning embers hovering at the treeline before collapsing into the ash of earth. Mai doesn’t see Ty Lee again until later that night; she gets changed into her performance outfit quickly, pulling on the fabric as fast as possible to hide herself from the cold draft in the costume trailer. 

The crowd driving into the parking lot and wandering around the carnival is a familiar noise, one that’s more comforting than anxiety-provoking. Mai remembers her first few shows and the fear that had come with the laughter and sound of car wheels over gravel. It didn’t help that her mentor, Piandao, would be throwing knives at her for half an hour. There was a certain trust and intimacy that came with standing on the block and keeping your eyes open as the blades cut through the air to land next to your ear, and Mai had never been a very trusting person. 

As the big top opens up to the crowd and the audience fills the stands, the music begins to filter through the air and swallows up any sense of nervousness that Mai might have once had. The audience came to see the threat that comes through the dangerous acts, comes to see the possibility of an accident, comes to sit at the edge of the seats with bitten lips and catching that swoop in their heart when it looks like someone is about to fall. It’s the performers’ job to make it look impossible but feel safe among themselves. 

Mai is perhaps more confident that she should be. 

Whatever confidence she has, though, lets her step into the ring with a tight-lipped smile and knives at her wrists. Natsuko follows, their movements as choreographed as a ballet might be. This is a well-rehearsed dance. 

It’s not until the very final moments of the performance that Mai takes a glance away from Natsuko. She’s kept her eyes trained on the other girl for the past five minutes, carefully noting the speed at which she was moving, throwing the knives with a precision that only came with hours of staring at the spinning block and at the way Natsuko would shift to the left every time she took a deep breath. Even when she was blindfolded, she was carefully counting out the speed she was moving, listening for the clicking sound of the block. 

But in these final moments, Mai glances just to the side, towards the back of the audience. There, half hidden behind the stands with wide eyes that seem to glitter in the dark, Ty Lee stands, watching her. 

Mai looks at her for longer than she should, taking precious time away from the performance. But Ty Lee, half covered in the shadow of an audience and popcorn that falls from the stands every few moments, has half a smile on her face, that absent one she gets when she’s not aware that she’s smiling, when she’s just thinking to herself. It’s a private kind of smile, not meant as a performance but as a secret. Something meant just for herself,but also something for Mai. 

It’s just a moment, just a second frozen, eyes meeting across the ring, but it feels like an eternity. It feels like a new, tender, desperate clarity. Mai isn’t sure what she understands, but she knows that Ty Lee is there. 

When she turns back to Natusko, to her knives, to her show, she’s stronger than she’s ever been. The knife hits its mark with a resounding thump, slicing into the wooden block and staying there. The audience claps. Mai turns back to the shadows, and Ty Lee has disappeared, but that adrenaline, that heat in Mai’s veins is still there, lingering.


	3. Chapter 3

Azula, the daughter of the producer, has this tendency to hover—to watch each show with a sharp eye, analyze each movement to make sure everything is running on time. Even within her own act, she’s constantly double checking her props and practicing when she doesn’t need to. Though she’s one of Mai’s closest friends, Mai is pretty sure that Azula spends more time with her fire than with people who care about her.

It comes with the territory, Mai figures, being the daughter of the most demanding ringmaster there is makes you obsessed with perfection. Everyone might have been training for most of their adult lives, but Zuko and Azula have been working with fire since they were children. Mai had only learned the dangerous tricks recently, when she turned 18, but she had heard stories of Azula playing with flames at the age of eight. 

Mai watches her practice, on one of the days that she comes in early and doesn’t need to get ready for the show that night yet. Azula practices behind the big top, in a clearing at the edge of the grounds where there’s no risk of burning down any tents. Her brother, Zuko, is there with her, working on his own act, with the same anxious drive but without the precision. Mai can’t quite keep her eye on one or the other, instead looking between them from flame to flame as if they were warring armies with flaming batons as weapons, rather than two fire breathers practicing separate acts. 

Azula pours a small canister of paraffin into her mouth, eyes closed as she tilts her head back, then wipes the fuel off of her chin. She has the art down to a science, flicking the cloth over her face in a swift, barely there movement. The torch she holds in her other hand groans and roars as she holds it over her mouth and exhales. 

The heat of the fire reaches Mai, even from where she sits at a picnic table a few feet away. Zuko has stopped his own practice to sit next to her, carefully wrapping another round of torches to work with. The metal rods are scorched at the top, and his hand trembles just slightly as he pulls a cloth tightly around it. 

“She’s always been good, perfect even,” Zuko says quietly, eyes on Azula, “but she always thinks she can do better.” 

“That’s what comes with practice,” Mai says, not really thinking about it. 

She’s so used to arguing on behalf of Azula, so used to pushing forward this agenda of perfection, that she doesn’t stop to consider the drip of fuel down Azula’s chin or the way the fire spits through the air in a carefully controlled roll. Azula has been practicing the same forms for years now, longer and more successfully than Zuko has, and there’s not much more she can learn. 

“Did you know she’s inventing more forms?” Zuko asks. His voice is casual, but there’s an edge to it that Mai doesn’t want to analyze. He’s never been a good liar but he’s even worse at expressing his feelings, and Mai recognizes that blade in his words—it’s a kind of fear that he can’t admit to. 

“Oh?” 

Zuko nods. He looks down at the torches again, tying off the cloth before setting it down and taking up the next rod. “She wants me to try them out for her, before she performs them.” 

“Has she tried them yet?” 

Zuko snorts. “Of course not.” 

“Sounds safe,” Mai says dryly. She looks at Zuko, and from where she sits on his left side, all she can see is a crease of worry at his eye, and the tense line of his mouth. He’s going to do it for her, and there’s not much she could do to stop him, even if she wanted to. 

“Safety is the priority in the Carnival of Embers,” Zuko says in a high pitched voice, parroting the orientation speech every new performer gets. “We’re here to ensure safe and energetic fun.” 

Mai smirks, looking away and back at Azula. She’s paused, swallowing a gulp of water to wash out the paraffin left on her tongue. Mai knows from Zuko that it tastes horrible, but Azula has never flinched. 

“Ozai’s inspecting her, too, then,” Mai says. 

It’s not a question. There are no such allowances, no such security, for anyone in the carnival, and that includes Ozai’s own children. However hard Azula works, one misplaced breath is enough for… Mai isn’t sure what the punishment would be exactly, but she doesn’t really want to know either. 

She remembers, just vaguely, Ursa, their mother—how she had argued for Zuko, had argued that mistakes were inevitable, that people deserve second chances. Mai remembers how Ozai had reminded her she had come from the city and knew nothing about the angry life of fire, had reminded her that each mistake was another inch of luck run out. She remembers how Ursa had walked away, back to the ring, green bracelets at her wrist, every superstition broken. After that, Mai knew, Ozai’s inspections were the last line between vitality and homelessness. 

“Both of us,” Zuko confirms. He finishes wrapping another torch, adding it to the pile of props to be used later that night. “Azula’s decided the best way for me to impress him is to try out something new tonight. Then she’ll say she taught me. Win-win. Is he inspecting you too?” 

Mai nods. Without thinking about it, her hand goes to the knife strapped to her thigh. Zuko had given it to her— _never give up without a fight, never give up without a fight, never give up_ —and she wonders how worth it the fight would be, if Ozai decided there was no longer any room for knives in a carnival. Where would she even go? 

“The inspections will be sometimes this week,” Zuko tells her. Less of a casual comment and more of a dire warning. Mai swallows hard. “No word on who on what day, but soon. Don’t mess up.” 

“I never do,” Mai says. It’s a lie. She’s messed up plenty of times, mostly in training, and has the scars to prove it. Still, though, if she says it enough times, maybe that’ll be enough to be better. 

Zuko actually laughs at that. It’s a bitter, tired laugh, just under his breath and not nearly enough to draw Azula’s attention, but Mai knows him well enough to know it’s there. “I think the only one in this carnival who genuinely hasn’t messed up is Ty Lee.” 

“She knocked me over the other night,” Mai points out, ignoring the flush rising over her cheeks, ignoring the twitch in her heartbeat. 

Zuko looks over, both eyebrows raised, and she knows that he’s noticed. He might be unobservant in every other area, but he knows her. “Yeah?” 

“I was just watching her run through one move,” Mai says, swallowing down the heat at her face. She doesn’t look at him. 

“Sure,” Zuko hums. He turns back to Azula, eyes carefully running over her movements and the way the fire slips from a paraffin-covered tongue into a misted air. “Just the two of you. On a trapeze.” 

Mai sighs. She leans forward, putting an elbow on the picnic table and resting her chin in her hand, fingers covering her mouth just slightly. She can feel the heat of her own breath against the inside of her knuckles. Zuko kicks her foot under the table, and she rolls her eyes at him. “Well, I wasn’t on the trapeze.” 

“Still.” 

Mai stares hard at Azula, very carefully not looking at Zuko. She can feel his gaze on her, heavy eyes that can see right through her words in a way that she doesn’t want to think about. He’s tapping his fingers against the picnic table, a sharp noise that runs straight through Mai’s bones.

Mai licks her lips, trying to remember the taste of the wind that night. “It was nothing. We’ve been friends forever, it’s nothing weird.” 

“Right,” Zuko says, in that dry voice he only uses in disbelief. 

“Shut up,” is all that Mai can mutter. It’s a feeble defense and they both know it. 

Zuko takes a deep breath, then hits the table with both hands before standing up. He glances at her, hair ruffled in the early autumn wind, the corner of his mouth raised just enough for Mai to feel him laughing at her. He gathers the new torches in his arms to walk back to the big tent, where they would be ready for the night. 

“Good luck with inspections,” Zuko says, “see you down the road.” 

Mai gives him one sharp nod before he turns away, and she looks back towards Azula. She’s drinking water again, having discarded the torches on the ground next to the bottle of paraffin. A single strand of hair has fallen loose from her ponytail, sticking against the sweat on her forehead. Azula pushes it behind her ear, then hardens her stare. Mistakes aren’t tolerated during inspection week. When she looks back at Mai, her eyes are hard, a flicker of fire still echoing in her eyes. 

It takes a moment for Mai to realize that anything’s different. Azula has always had a glare that intense, her own kind of knife in her hands and words. But Mai’s eyes flicker to her neck, where the tiniest green pendant rests at the hollow of her throat. 

“Never wear green in the circus,” Mai remembers Azula telling her when she first joined. “Not unless you’re prepared for the consequences. My mother didn’t know that, not until she—”

Azula swallows, the stone pendant slipping slightly. She touches it with just one finger, brushing over the stone and then down to her side again. She and Mai look at each other, and neither says a word. 

Mai has never been a superstitious person—wear all the green you want, sleep in the ring if you’re tired, whistle if you’re bored, turn your back to the ring if you hate looking at something, elephant hair is an outdated charm—but the way Azula is looking at her lays a new kind of weight on her shoulders. Like a new responsibility is pushing her down into the earth. There’s a reason everything in this particular circus is built on black, white, and red. There’s a reason Azula lays into every rule her father makes, a reason she hates her mother in the fabricated, veiled way she does.

She thinks back, just for the briefest moment, to all the things that happened before Ty Lee joined—to Aang’s fall from the trapeze, to Piandao’s knife clawing its way through Mai’s shoulder, to the tightwire’s collapse just as Teo reached the middle, to the fire that ate over Lu Ten’s arms—and wonders what game Azula is playing now. 

But she doesn’t say anything. Mai keeps quiet and waits as Azula gathers her things and then joins her to walk towards the dinner tent. She keeps quiet as Azula leaves to get into costume, the pendant suddenly hidden. She keeps quiet when Ty Lee joins them, she keeps quiet about the way Azula pushes food around her plate without eating, she keeps quiet about her flinching when Ozai steps into the tent and calls them all to attention.

The show begins, a weight of fearful anticipation settling in Mai’s breath, and Zuko walks into the ring.


	4. Chapter 4

There are a few parts to the fire dancing section of the show. Zuko starts the show—he goes out with the baton, both of the ends lit, flames licking near to his wrist. The music plays, the dance begins, and the fire burns. Mai knows every step—she stands next to the safety crew, who hold the fire extinguishers just in case. They’ve gotten relaxed in the past few years, though. The fire dancers know their art, they know their game. 

Zuko finishes his part of the show, and then the group dance begins. Three other fire dancers join him in the ring; they go to him and light their own batons then stand in their line. Their dance was choreographed years ago, back when Ozai was a fire dancer rather than the producer. They spin and the fire hisses, alive in their hands, and the audience roars. There’s a certain thrill to it, listening to the audience, so captivated by the fire, the flames shadowed over pale faces. Even Mai, standing at the edge of the ring and terrified of fire, gets lost in the hypnosis of light. 

When the group is done, Zuko does his final step, and the fires go out. Azula enters in darkness, the audience quiet, holding their breath until Azula exhales flames and the ring bursts into light. She dances around the ring as if she herself is just another flame. She’s as much fire as the actual torches; she’s as much kerosene as the wet cloths at the end of the batons. 

Azula finishes with a final leap and a breath and a dragon-like spin, and the flames go out. The music ends. The audience lets go of their breath, unscorched. The show moves on. 

Today, Mai stands just behind the line of safety crew members. She watches as Zuko walks onto the ring, as the music begins, something loud and thumping, a kind of gunfire or a rapid heartbeat. Maybe both. 

Either way, Zuko steps out. He has that concentration etched into his face, the stone of his skin hardened and focused. He performs without a shirt, and he’s already sweating from the heat of the fire, a sheen of flame over the muscles at his back. 

He riles up the crowd, he yells, he grins, he performs. He’s an actor more than anything, he’s the pretense of sunlight in darkness. The ring is as dark as you can get while still being able to see, and the audience’s faces are completely covered in shadows, completely lost in the darkness. All that there is are their cheers, are the sound of stomping feet, of the drumbeat pounding. You can feel it in the metal stands and in the ground, the drums reverberating throughout the tent. Mai doesn’t know if it’s the cold draft or the fiery heat or the music or her anxiety, but she’s shaking just slightly. 

Zuko has barely begun his routine when Mai glances to her side to find Azula stepping up next to her. She stares straight ahead, eyes trained on Zuko. There’s no worry, no hesitation, no fear there, nothing that might signify that anything could go wrong. For just the briefest second, Mai forgets that Zuko is going to change his routine tonight. 

But then Azula swallows hard and her lips twitch and Mai remembers the green stone at her neck and everything crashes in again. 

“Why are you doing this?” Mai asks, voice quiet, just another drumbeat. 

It’s not her place to question Azula, it’s not her place to be afraid, but the drums are speeding up and Mai can see where the routine is changing—it’s a foot to the left instead of the right, it’s a tossed baton instead of a spun one, it’s a swallowed flame instead of a spit one. Each movement leaves a trail of smoke behind, and soon enough, Zuko is dancing in that smog, making it a part of his routine, a blanket over the fire. When he bursts through the smoke and the fire roars, the audience is a lion. 

“It’s to help him,” Azula says, voice hard.

Before she can respond, Mai can feel someone else approach—Ty Lee steps up to her other side, her eyes narrowed. Zuko tosses the fire above his head, catches it behind his back, slides in a circle and kicks the fire around his ankles. 

“He’s doing something wrong,” Ty Lee murmurs. She doesn’t look over at Mai, one half of her face in darkness, the other shadowed by the flicker of flame. “His wrist is shaking.” 

Azula’s mouth is in a tight line, and that’s all Mai needs to know that she’s just as worried as they are. As Zuko must be. The pendant slips above her collar, a shock of green against the red. Her performance costume is essentially just a loose skirt and bralette, one that collars at her neck and cuts off in a flame-shaped bit of fabric at her chest. It would hide the pendant if Azula hadn’t reached up to touch it. 

Mai can’t bring herself to say anything, but Ty Lee has noticed the necklace too, and her eyes are wide. Mai glances from Ty Lee to Azula, examining the pendant—it’s not just a stone, but a piece of aventurine carved into one of the lucky gods. _Good luck,_ Mai knows. 

“You’re wearing green,” Ty Lee says, voice almost a whisper, almost a yell, half an admonishment, half a fear. 

Azula doesn’t look at them. She keeps her eyes on Zuko, but she tucks the pendant back under her collar, where it bulges out slightly under the fabric. 

“Mom gave it to me for good luck,” she whispers. The drums get louder. Mai’s feet ache against hard ground. “Maybe it’ll do something for him. Since she loved him so much.” 

Mai looks away. The drums don’t stop. The dance doesn’t stop. There’s a flash of light from Azula’s choker as it falls loose again and she has to tuck it back in. Ty Lee turns away, the soft lines of her face suddenly hardened. Zuko breathes fire and then Mai sees it— 

He’s put the paraffin in his mouth, and just a drop slips past his lips and over his face. He’s tilted his head back, so it drips to the edge of his left cheek, the light catching it at just the right angle that Mai can see it clearly. It could be nothing but sweat or a trick of the light, but Mai’s stomach drops and she knows what’s coming next. 

His torch is already lit at both ends, the same way it might have been if the routine hadn’t changed, but he brings it to his mouth and exhales. Mai can see the liquid paraffin leave his lips, can see it as it catches the flame and bursts, breaks, splits into the air, into fingers reaching out for something to burn. 

Then Zuko moves the torch to his side and throws his arms up, propelling himself into a backflip, the fire still above him, still bursting over his head like a miniature sun, and those searching fingers find skin. He flips over, once, twice, before spinning to reach ground, landing hard on both feet.

It’s an easy thing, to burn. 

It’s not because skin is easy to burn—no, you have to put effort into burning skin—but he has fuel soaked into every fiber of his being. In the flip, the paraffin has dripped over his cheek and upwards to his eye, the torch has found the remnants of fuel at the fabric of his pants, the flames have found spots where he was a little too careless with the fuel. 

Mai isn’t sure if it's the way Zuko has soaked in fuel or the way that he flipped himself over and let the fire lick his clothes or the way that Azula has straightened up and tightened her glare or the way that Ty Lee has sucked in a breath and hasn’t let go of it or the way that Zuko has dropped to his knees and screamed or the way that the audience is screaming or the way that everyone is frozen, but Mai closes her eyes. She looks away. 

From behind closed eyelids, everything is dulled. 

The screaming is agonizing, it cuts down her throat and into her bones, splitting her lungs into a terrified kind of heaving breath. Zuko is burning. Mai can’t bring herself to look. 

Around her, she can feel the safety crew flooding from behind the scenes and into the ring, fire extinguishers already heavy in their hands. Opening her eyes is painful, her eyelashes trying to glue themselves shut, but when she stares out at the ring, there’s a cloud of white fire suppressing agent soaking into the dust, a flame biting through the cloud every few inches.

Zuko isn’t screaming anymore, and it hurts to breathe, hurts to look, hurts to think—and what is the fire to him?—and Mai finds herself reaching out, anywhere, for anything to steady her. On one side, she can hear the tremble of Azula’s breath and the glitter of her own costume, seeming to smile like it's won something today. On Mai’s other side, her hand finds Ty Lee and holds tight. 

She’s gripping Ty Lee’s arm so tightly that it’s hurting her own grip, her fingernails digging into skin to reach the tensed muscle. She slides her hand down, finding Ty Lee’s hand and intertwining their fingers. She can’t quite think, everything happening too fast and too loud. 

The audience-- and how can there be an audience, how can anyone watch this, how can anything else in the world exist but Zuko and Ty Lee and that awful, grating scream?—is still, is pounding, is groaning. Feet pound against the stands, everyone hurrying to get up and run or get up and take a closer look. 

Mai doesn’t want a closer look, doesn’t want to see any of this. There aren’t words that can be said for this moment and there aren’t thoughts that can be had for this moment. It’s awful and all Mai can do is close her eyes again.

The world is spinning around her—the safety crew has beaten the flames away and Mai can feel the shifting of curtain and audience as they carry him away. She doesn’t know where they’re going, where Zuko is going to disappear to? Where do you go when you burn? Ashes sink into the earth and disintegrate, embers fall away and crumble, and skin withers and crushes and Zuko— 

Ty Lee squeezes her hand, and Mai is pretty sure that Ty Lee’s touch is the only thing grounding her to this earth. If not for holding her hand, Mai would have disappeared already, would have become part of the air, drifting in between the memory of flame and skin and screaming, invisible and haunting.

Mai closes her eyes. She can still feel the heat of fire, the melting point of skin, the disintegration of a dream-like circus into something deeper than a nightmare. 

It’s the end of something, Mai thinks. Ty Lee’s fingers are digging into the back of Mai’s hand, leaving a kind of clawmark in the place where they had tried to hang onto the physical world. Mai wonders, just for a moment, if Ty Lee knows how to handle this any better than she does. 

When she opens her eyes and glances over, though, Ty Lee is crying silently, her tears golden in the wake of the fires still burning in the ring. Mai swallows down any sense of understanding, any comprehension of fire. She looks away.


	5. Chapter 5

The three of them—Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula—sit in the waiting room of the hospital. It’s silent, the only noise being the slight buzz of the fluorescent lights in Mai’s ears. It’s bright, too bright, like maybe the sun has gone out and these hospital room lights are the only light left in the world. Mai still hasn’t really caught her breath yet. She can just sit there, in this too small, too hard chair, between Ty Lee and Azula and hope for the best. 

She’s never really believed in any gods, and she’s never really prayed before, but now, she sits in this waiting room and closes her eyes and begs whatever forces are out there that Zuko will be okay. He has to be. She doesn’t know where things went wrong-- no, she does know, but she’s never going to say it out loud-- and she doesn’t know how she can fix them. Maybe there is no fixing them. 

Even if— _when_ —Zuko survives this, he’s not going to be able to come back to the carnival. He’s not going to recover enough to perform again, covered in burn scars and with shaking hands. Ozai would never let him. The press will be bad enough already. Zuko is… he’s going to be gone. Lost. 

But Mai can’t bring herself to think that far ahead, not now. She pushes all of those thoughts out of her head and focuses on the moment. She focuses on the deep, even breaths Azula is taking, her eyes carefully trained on the wall in front of her, like there’s nothing else left in the world. She focuses on the slight bounce of Ty Lee’s knee, unable to stay still, her fingers tapping her thighs and her gaze flitting around the room without really seeing anything. 

Ozai isn’t here, in the hospital. He’s refunding all of the tickets for the audience who saw everything happen. He’s got bigger problems than Zuko. 

“Do you remember,” Ty Lee whispers, not looking at Mai, “when I first joined?” 

Mai glances at her, not quite sure where she’s going with this. “Yeah. You were so nervous.” 

“A little,” Ty Lee says. The corner of her mouth tilts up just slightly, bitter and regretful. “But Zuko was one of the first people to welcome me here. Zuko and you.” 

“He’s good like that,” Mai said, turning away. 

Ty Lee nods, fingers stilling. “So are you.” 

“Sure,” Mai says. 

She shrugs, very carefully not looking at Ty Lee. She can feel Ty Lee looking at her, eyes wide and as gentle as always. There’s something about the way that Ty Lee looks at her that makes Mai feel seen, that makes Mai feel vulnerable in a way that she can’t quite handle at the moment. 

She knows what happens when you trust people—Zuko is what happens. Zuko, who blindly agreed to do what Azula told him to. Zuko, who was sitting in a hospital bed some dozen feet away, in an impossible kind of pain. 

Ty Lee looks away, taking a deep breath. “I never really thanked you for that. For showing me around. Welcoming me.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Mai says quietly. She dares a glance over at Ty Lee, just a single, split second. “Jin and Zuko did the same.” 

“Yeah,” Ty Lee says. “But they had to. Jin is my partner and Zuko is Ozai’s kid. You didn’t have to talk to me at all, but you did anyway. You chose to do that.” 

Mai nods, something unbidden flooding into her chest. She doesn’t know why she had done that, why she had wanted to talk to Ty Lee. She had been annoying at first—too bubbly, too bright, too pink. She had had a thousand questions that Mai hadn’t ever bothered to think of. She had tried to hold Mai’s hand before Mai flinched away, she had smiled anyways, she had laughed at nothing and watched Mai’s show without being asked to. She had been too happy-- though Mai knew, later, it was some kind of cover for her nervousness-- and it had grated against the frustration Mai was harboring. But still-- Mai had talked to her and Ty Lee had talked back and they never seemed to stop. 

“I guess,” Mai finally says. 

Next to her, Azula scoffs. “Is now really the time to get sentimental?” 

There’s quiet for a moment, both Mai and Ty Lee stiffening up and shoving any kind of memory out of their heads. Maybe Azula was right, maybe now wasn’t the time for anything but this stock still anxiety. 

“I don’t really know what else to do,” Ty Lee finally murmurs. She looks away, towards the receptionist’s desk. “What else are we supposed to do?” 

Azula goes quiet at that, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “Wait.” 

“For what?” Mai asks, words coming out sharper than she had meant them to. “What happens next, Azula?” 

Azula turns towards her, glaring, and Mai flinches back. Azula opens her mouth as if to bite back, as if to say some insult and break this cruel silence, blame her for something, or yell something awful. But she closes her mouth and says nothing, and then bursts into tears. 

“Oh,” Mai whispers. “Zula…” 

“It’s my fault,” Azula mutters, pulling back from Mai. She leans back in her chair, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around herself. “I told him to do it. I thought—” 

Mai swallows, looking Azula up and down. The three of them are still in their performance costumes, and Azula is shivering in the air conditioning of the hospital. The glitter of her bralette seems to be laughing at her. Mai isn’t sure what to say, isn’t sure what she’s supposed to be feeling—some wet, angry part of her does blame Azula, does know that Azula was the one to tell Zuko to change his routine, does know that if Azula hadn’t interfered, everything would have been fine. 

“It’s not your fault,” Ty Lee says, on Mai’s other side. She speaks quietly, just under her breath. Mai wonders how much Ty Lee actually knows; how much of these words is blind devotion and how much is genuine consolation. “It could have happened to anyone, at any point.” 

Azula shrugs, the tears still running down her cheeks and dripping down her chin in waves. She can’t meet their eyes, can’t turn towards them. She just rests her chin on her knees, and lets her face crumple into some terrified kind of grief. 

“He just wanted Dad to—the inspections—” Azula breaks off, squeezing her eyes shut. 

She doesn’t have to finish the sentence, though. Both Mai and Ty Lee know what words follow without her having to say them. Both Zuko and Azula had just wanted Ozai to approve of them and their performance. Both of them had just wanted to pass the inspection. 

It was the same paranoia that everyone in the carnival had, the same fear that their show would be cut and tossed to the side. But for Zuko and Azula, it was their father they were trying to impress. It was their father’s love they were trying to win. And sometimes, Mai knew, Ozai only had enough love—if it could be called that—for one of the two siblings. 

“I know,” Ty Lee murmurs. 

She reaches out, as if to touch Azula, but stops halfway there, dropping her hand to Mai’s thigh. She rests her hand there, Mai stiffening for an instant before relaxing into it. It’s a comfortable weight, and Mai doesn’t know why she’s overthinking it so much when the world is crashing down around them and it feels so nice. 

Mai, slightly, slowly, gently, moves her hand to rest on top of Ty Lee’s hand. Her palm presses against the back of Ty Lee’s hand, and she wonders what her own touch feels like. Ty Lee doesn’t look at her—she keeps her gaze on Azula—but without seeming to think about it, she shifts to intertwine their fingers, holding onto Mai. 

“It’ll be okay,” Ty Lee says, and it sounds like she believes it. 

“Sure,” Azula says, hard and bitter. She doesn’t believe it for an instant. 

“Yeah,” Mai says, and she doesn’t know what the word means. 

They sit in silence for a moment there, none of them looking at each other. Across the room, a doctor is talking to an elderly woman in a hijab, a clipboard tight in his arms. The woman is nodding, a half smile on her face. She tugs at her sleeves, pulling them farther over her wrists and crosses her arms around herself. The doctor gives her a smile, and she nods again. When the doctor waves her away with him, she follows him down the hall to visit her loved one. 

For a while, the world seems to still. It seems to pause for them, while they sit in the waiting room. Their heartbeats slow down, their breaths even out, the sun doesn’t rise. Mai doesn’t hear or see anything that matters. All she knows, for those next few hours, is the way Ty Lee’s hand feels in her own and the worry that has settled into her chest. 

Mai is too anxious to sleep, but Ty Lee seems on the verge of passing out next to her. It’s not until her eyes are slipping closed, then guiltily shooting open again, that the doctor comes out to talk to them. As soon as he approaches, his mouth in a tight line, the three girls stand up. Ty Lee drops Mai’s hand. 

“Are you Zuko’s family?” 

Azula nods, and Mai notes the near invisible tremble of her hands, held tightly around her chest. “Yes.” 

“He’s going to survive,” the doctor says slowly, taking a deep breath. He glances at the clipboard, as if he doesn’t know all the answers, as if this moment isn’t important enough to memorize. Maybe, for him, it isn’t. For Mai, this isn’t something she’ll ever forget. “He’s unconscious right now, but you can see him if you would like.” 

Azula glances at the other two, just barely catching their nods. “We’ll do that.” 

“Come with me,” the doctor says, waving a hand. He doesn’t wait for them before turning around and beginning to head down a hallway that Mai hadn’t noticed before. 

It’s not a long walk, but every step feels weighted. The doctor turns a corner and then stops outside of a room, motioning for them to step inside. Azula walks in first, holding her breath. Mai and Ty Lee follow. 

“The burns on his chest and legs are second degree,” the doctor is saying, behind them. None of them are listening. “Those will heal well, though movement might be stunted on his legs. We just have to monitor them closely.” 

“His face,” Ty Lee whispers. 

She’s walked around to the far side of his bed, one fist digging into the mattress of the hospital bed. Her eyes are trained on Zuko’s face, where a thick bandage is wrapped around the left side of his head, where a dark red of the skin bleeds out just past the bandage, as if they had been wrapped awkwardly and loosely. Her face is contorted into something horrified; less so at Zuko’s appearance but at the idea of pain. 

“The burn on his face is more severe,” the doctor admits. His voice is deep and gravelly, and it makes Mai want to punch him. She still has her knife strapped to her thigh—the knife Zuko had given her. “We’ve done what we can for him now. He’ll require skin grafts, and it’s going to be a painful few weeks.” 

Mai feels herself nodding, but she’s not sure if she’s really understanding. She’s just watching Zuko—the labored breath, the shift of his right eye under his close eyelid, the clenching of his jaw where the bandage is holding his face together.

Azula is standing next to him, her hands gripping the rail of the bed tight enough to make her knuckles pale. She looks as if she’s on the verge of collapsing. Mai doesn’t know if she should be going to Azula or Ty Lee or Zuko or the doctor or if she should just sit down on this tiled floor and cry for a long, long time. 

Mai has always known that fire is dangerous. Flames burn, and it hurts when they touch you. But Zuko has always seemed to be immune from that. Both Zuko and Azula—the most talented fire dancers in the carnival—have always seemed inflammable. They weren’t ever supposed to get hurt. No one in the carnival is supposed to get hurt. 

She looks over to Ty Lee. Ty Lee, who has never fallen, who has never missed the trapeze, who has never broken her wings and dropped a hundred feet to the harsh dirt of the ring, and wonders what it means to be invincible. She wonders what it means to be breakable. Zuko, who was never supposed to burn, who was never supposed to break—just yesterday, no, just earlier today, he had been teasing her and laughing—was lying in a hospital bed and barely breathing. 

In so little time, everything’s gone wrong. Ty Lee is openly crying, breath shaking and hands balled into fists, and Mai doesn’t know how to stop her. She doesn’t know how to do anything but join her. 

Still, though, Mai takes a deep breath. And another one. She tightens her jaw and keeps her eyes narrowed, focused on the clean side of Zuko’s face. She hardens her own face into something stone, something unbreakable, something invulnerable. Stepping over to Ty Lee, Mai wraps an arm around her shoulders, holding her tightly. 

Ty Lee comes willingly, tucking her head into the curve of Mai’s neck and letting herself rest there. Mai moves her hand in wide circles against Ty Lee’s back, trying to rub some kind of comfort into her, and watches Zuko, eyes burning and refusing to cry. 

Someone here has to be strong, right? 

Mai takes another deep breath, forcing her thoughts onto the weight of Ty Lee’s head at Mai’s collarbone, forcing her energy into comforting her. She glances upwards at Azula, who is still gripping the bed rail tightly, but now has her eyes trained on Mai and Ty Lee. Her eyes are narrowed, glaring, hard and angry. Mai doesn’t know quite what she was thinking, but she glares back, and dares Azula to say something. 

She doesn’t say anything. Instead, both Mai and Azula turn down to Zuko and ignore each other. He’s breathing, and that’s the only sound that Mai could hear. That’s the only sound that Mai wants to hear.


	6. Chapter 6

“Stay with me?” 

Mai blinks, turning towards Ty Lee, not sure that she heard right. “What?” 

Ty Lee is sitting in the driver’s seat of her car, biting her lip as she looks over at Mai. They’re parked in front of Azula’s place, having just dropped her off on the way back from the hospital. Azula had only just disappeared into the apartment building, and was probably still climbing the stairs to get up to her floor, mumbling about the broken elevator. 

Mai sat in the passenger’s seat, leaning her elbow against the window and staring at Ty Lee, not making full eye contact, but not looking away either. 

“Stay at my place tonight,” Ty Lee says quietly. “I don’t want to be alone. I keep—I just keep thinking about the fire. About what it looked like.” 

Mai swallows. She knows the feeling. “Yeah. I’ll stay.” 

“Thank you,” Ty Lee murmurs, then she looks away from Mai and turns the key in the ignition. “Want to put on music?” 

Mai only nods, not really thinking about it. She plugs in her phone and chooses some random playlist, still thinking about Ty Lee and what “staying at my place” entailed. Ty Lee is humming along with the song, and Mai can’t quite take her eyes off of Ty Lee. Her humming is off key and just a little too loud, but Mai loves it; she listens closely to every breath, watching the whisper of her lips as the song keeps going.

It seems that, just for a moment, there’s nothing in the world but Ty Lee and the music. There’s nothing in the world but the sound of her voice. 

Except, that’s not true. That’s not how the world works.

Ty Lee keeps driving, the wheels rolling over the cracks in the concrete, breaking through the shadows of streetlights and heading farther into the city. It’s late out, and the streets are mostly empty, so Ty Lee goes faster than she normally would. There are no pedestrians to stop for and no cars to slow down for.

Mai rolls the window down, sticking her hand out into the night air. The wind threads through her fingers and she moves her hand in a wave-like motion, feeling the wind shift against her palm and down her wrist. Her sleeves blow in the wind, wrinkling up past her wrist and flapping against the metal of the car door.

The music floods through her ears, running out of the window and tangling itself in her head. It’s a love song, something about a girl and a boy and how inevitable love is. Ty Lee keeps her eyes on the road, but every now and then, Mai can feel her glance over for the briefest of moments. It’s an impossible kind of glance, one that Mai can’t acknowledge without acknowledging that she’s also glancing over at Ty Lee for every other split second. 

Zuko is still burning in Mai’s head, a kind of branding on the backs of her eyelids. But if she listens closely to the music, if she lets herself dissolve into Ty Lee’s singing, she can almost turn away from it. She can almost pretend it had never happened. 

But at the same time, pushing the thought away just makes her feel more guilty about it. Every time she thinks about it-- about the scream, about the burn, about the bandages-- her heart stops and flickers out of commission. But when she looks away and ignores all of that, a burst of guilt explodes in her lungs and she forgets to breathe for a minute. 

There’s no winning, not really. There’s only the fire. Fire doesn’t care about pain or guilt; it just burns. 

Ty Lee doesn’t seem to be faring much better. Her hands are tight on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead with slightly glassy eyes. Her braid has come slightly undone, strands of hair falling away from the elastics and hanging over her face. Mai can’t get a good view of her face, blocked by a curl of hair that falls past her ear and curls at the end. 

Ty Lee is lost in the music, for just that moment, thinking solely about the song. For those moments that Mai watches her, the sound of drums is the only thing that matters. For those moments, Ty Lee is all that matters. 

“I’ve never really been afraid of falling,” Ty Lee says, as the song ends and the spell is broken. 

Mai looks out of the window, letting her hand fall limp against the side of the car. “Are you now?” 

“No,” Ty Lee says. She says it quickly, not even thinking about the question. It doesn’t seem to be one. “But I think I’m afraid for other people, now.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Mai looks over at her, just in time to catch her shrug. Ty Lee licks her lips, thinking about it. “I didn’t really ever think Zuko would… get hurt, not like that. I didn’t think any of us would.” 

“Now you do,” Mai murmurs. “Now it’s _real.”_

Ty Lee nods, but doesn’t say anything. She watches the road ahead of her, at the dark lines of the street that the headlights show. The moon is behind them, half alight and half dark. With the bright lights of the city, of the skyscrapers, Mai can’t see any stars. She can only catch the smoke of the clouds, the slow way that they pass through the sky ahead of them. 

It’s fall, so Ty Lee has the heat on low, and Mai can feel herself beginning to sweat. She studies Ty Lee’s face—the way she concentrates while she drives, the way the shadow from her hair falls over her cheeks, the way the dim light of the car hides any blemish in her skin. 

“I worry about you,” Ty Lee admits, suddenly. 

Mai blinks, frowning at her. “Why?” 

Ty Lee shrugs, and waves a hand vaguely before taking the steering wheel again. “You’re brave, you know?” She looks at Mai out of the corner of her eye, but doesn’t turn. “It makes you careless.” 

“I’m not careless,” Mai says immediately. 

Ty Lee shrugs again. “Maybe not careless. But the way you talk, sometimes, like nothing matters. Like you don’t care what happens to you. You know what Ozai—or Azula—could do to you, and you don’t care.” 

“They can’t do anything to me,” Mai says. 

She’s being defensive and she doesn’t know why—because she does care about things, she does care what happens in the future. But the more that she thinks about it, the more that Ty Lee’s words sink in, she realizes that maybe Ty Lee has a point. Ozai could ruin her life, but Mai can’t find an issue with being contrary and sarcastic around Azula. Azula could take everything away from her, but only hours ago, Mai was staring her down and daring her to start a fight. 

“I care about things,” Mai bites out anyways. 

“What things?” Ty Lee asks, but something’s changed in her voice. It’s not an admission, or a criticism, or whatever she had been speaking with before. It’s something like waiting. Like wanting. 

Mai pauses. Outside of the car, the buildings pass by in a blur of gray steel. A few apartment lights are still on, people staying up late for work or school or fun. She wonders what the rest of the world is feeling at that moment, if every other person is as tense and afraid and wound up and aching as she is in this moment. 

“I care about the carnival,” Mai says. “And the Yankees. And my bonsai tree.” 

“Yeah?” 

Mai swallows, putting her hand up against the wind, feeling the air bite into the crevices of her palm. The world spins by as the wheels of the car spin on. The road growls beneath them, faded underneath the music that Mai had put on. 

“You,” Mai finally admits. “I care about you.”

Ty Lee exhales, but her grip on the steering wheel tightens. She doesn’t look at Mai, and she doesn’t say anything. 

In the silence, Mai is left to stare at her hand out of the window and not look at Ty Lee. She can feel her cheeks burning, heat flooding to her face. The admission weighs itself against her tongue, and she wonders how worth it it was to tell the truth. Vulnerability is a strange thing—she all at once wants it, wants to be soft next to Ty Lee, but at the same time, there is nothing more fearsome than letting herself be seen. There is nothing more dangerous than letting herself be known. 

_I care about you,_ Mai had said, and Ty Lee had said nothing in return. 

There are few people in the world that Mai trusts. There are fewer people in the world that Mai loves. 

Ty Lee, somehow, is in both of those categories. 

So Mai is left in the passenger seat of this car, listening to the music meander around the car, listening to the wheels run over the street, listening to the wind flooding through her ears, listening to the silence of Ty Lee, and she is herself. As much as Mai is hidden in the silence, Ty Lee is just as much wandering through that silence, searching. 

Ty Lee glances over at Mai, who very carefully doesn’t look back. 

Finally, Ty Lee swallows. “I care about you too, you know. More than you know.” 

Mai doesn’t say anything. She can’t. There are no words for this thickness in her throat, for this aching in her gut. There are no words for the fire beginning to seep over her lips and run upwards towards her soul. There are no words for the fear that’s swallowing her up—whether it's the fear of being seen or the fear of burning or the fear of losing, Mai doesn’t know, but it’s there all the same. 

_More than you know._

Mai doesn’t know anything at all. She doesn’t understand anything and part of her doesn’t want to. There’s this anger that lives deep behind her ribcage, and half of that anger is just masked fear. Half of all of her is just masked anger or fear. Half of all of her is just plain wanting that Mai doesn’t have a cure for. 

Ty Lee keeps driving. Maybe there is no cure. Maybe Mai is going to be left here, thinking over and over again, about what she knows and what she does not know and what could possibly be more than that. What could possibly be more than this gaping hole in Mai’s chest that wants nothing more than to be filled with understanding? 

They drive in silence until they reach Ty Lee’s apartment. When Ty Lee parks in the garage, they both sit there for a moment, unmoving. Ty Lee turns the key, and then this silence is broken again. There has been so much breaking already, Mai realizes, and decides that she can’t deal with any more breaking tonight. 

“I’m on the third floor,” Ty Lee says, finally, and leads her through the cold air and into the apartment building. 

It’s a short walk, and they do it in silence, both of them gripping tightly to their bags and keeping a strict distance between their hands. Mai isn’t sure what changed, what went wrong, whether it was her admission or Ty Lee’s whisper or just the whole car ride in general, but just during that walk, something that Mai can’t place has changed. 

Ignoring it, though, Ty Lee unlocks her apartment door and lets Mai inside. It’s a nice apartment, and when Ty Lee turns the lights on, it’s pretty much exactly what Mai would have thought her apartment would look like—a marble kitchen top and soft rugs, a blanket thrown over the couch, her tomato plant by the window, a collection of DVDs on a shelf next to photos of her family. 

“It’s a nice place,” Mai says, glancing at Ty Lee, who locks the door again and joins her inside.

“Thanks,” Ty Lee says, giving her a little half smile, one of the ones that makes Mai’s gut twist just slightly. “Bathroom is down the hall on the left, bedroom on the right. I—” she breaks up, studying Mai carefully for a moment. Mai isn’t sure what she finds there, but she continues. “If you’re okay sharing the bed, I’m okay with that.” 

Mai swallows, not thinking about it before she nods. “That’s fine.” 

“Great,” Ty Lee says, giving her a real smile now. She steps past Mai first, heading down the hallway. She doesn’t glance back again when she says, “Come on, then.”


	7. Chapter 7

Mai isn’t going to sleep that night. She already knows this—she knows this by the time that she gets into the bedroom to find Ty Lee’s queen sized bed with the purple quilt, she knows this by the time that Ty Lee gets her a toothbrush, she knows this by the time she’s pulled on a spare pair of Ty Lee’s sweatpants that barely go down to her ankles, she knows this by the time she’s sat down on the right side of the bed and waited for Ty Lee to join her. She knows this by the time that Ty Lee sits down on the other side and smiles at her, and Mai knows that she’s absolutely screwed. 

“You okay?” Ty Lee asks, shifting to lie down and pull the covers over herself. They’re soft; a creamy white sheet with a fuzzy pink blanket between the sheets and the quilt. “Just tired?” 

Mai nods, grateful for the excuse. “It’s been a long day.” 

“It really has,” Ty Lee says, with the kind of sigh that makes Mai want to lay down and fall asleep forever. 

“I just can’t—I don’t know how to believe any of it,” Mai murmurs, lying down. 

She’s still on top of the quilt, hands resting on her stomach. Her wrists are cold in the gentle chill of the bedroom, and she threads her fingers together in a smooth but anxious motion. Ty Lee turns to look over at her, her hair loose around her face. It’s one of the few times that Mai has seen it out of the braid, and it curls just slightly around her chin, waves spilling down her neck and over her chest. Mai could reach over, brush that one strand away from her cheek, taking a long look at the glimmer in her eyes, but she doesn’t. She just looks up at the ceiling, free of cracks and smooth across the room. 

“It doesn’t feel real, does it?” Ty Lee asks. She turns away. “I never really thought anything could go so wrong. Especially not anything here.” 

Mai nods, though Ty Lee isn’t looking at her. Then the corner of her lips tilt up just slightly. “That’s because you’ve never messed up.” 

“Don’t jinx it,” Ty Lee says, a small grin spreading over her mouth. It fits her face so perfectly, the shine of the lamp on her night stand flickering over her teeth. 

Mai smiles too, just barely there, but she knows that Ty Lee—who knows her better than the universe, in all its infinity, does—sees it. “What more could go wrong?” 

“Accidents happen in threes,” Ty Lee says blankly. “I know you’ve heard that one.” 

“Do you really believe in all of those superstitions?” 

Ty Lee shrugs, the pillow shifting with the movement. The motion makes Mai look over at her, trying to figure out the tense line that’s replaced her smile. Ty Lee is the kind of person who always looks happy, who always seems bubbly and energetic, but here in this shadowed bedroom, she’s 22 and looks so young, so afraid. 

“I try not to,” Ty Lee finally says, “but it’s hard not to, sometimes.” 

“They’re just sayings,” Mai reminds her, but the words are hollow, however much she forces herself to believe them. 

Ty Lee licks her lips, thinking. “I know. But they came from somewhere, right? Every weird belief and fear today has roots somewhere—like some people are afraid of heights because, way back when, people who were careful about falling would be the ones to survive and reproduce. It’s in our genes, or something. I read an article about it.” 

“But you’re not afraid of heights,” Mai counters. 

“No,” Ty Lee says slowly, “but enough people are that it’s impressive when I’m not.” 

Mai looks up at the ceiling, wonders what it must feel like to fall from such a height as Ty Lee does, and to have total faith that someone will catch you. Mai isn’t afraid of heights, never really has been, but she knows that she couldn’t bring herself to swing from the trapeze and fall like that. Part of her believes Ty Lee, that phobias are in her genes. Part of her believes that any fear can be pushed away, out of sight, out of mind, healed. Or, she wants to believe that. 

“It’s always impressive when someone is brave,” Mai says. She glances over at Ty Lee. “It’s always impressive when someone is that confident.” 

“I guess.” Ty Lee pulls the covers up closer to her chin, seeming to hide herself beneath them. Mai wonders, just for a moment, how much of her Mai can’t see. “It’s more impressive when someone is fearless.” 

“Isn’t that the same thing?” 

Ty Lee shrugs, the covers falling down past her neck again. “Maybe.” 

“Maybe,” Mai repeats. It’s another dream of a belief. 

There’s a moment of silence, the two of them sinking into their words and wondering how true they are. Or maybe it’s less of a truth and more of a hope. They lay there in the dark and wonder how many hopes go unsaid, how many hopes are lost when they fall asleep and forget about the day. 

Finally, Ty Lee sighs again, murmuring, “I’m going to try to get some sleep, I think.” Ty Lee glances over at Mai, as if waiting for permission, then tugs at the covers. “Here, get under.” 

Mai almost wants to protest, almost wants to admit that if she curls up in a bed with Ty Lee she might never be able to bring herself to wake up again. But Ty Lee pushes the blankets down just far enough for Mai to be able to push her legs under without issue. Ty Lee nods at her again, glancing from the bed to Mai with an insistence that Mai both loves and hates about her. 

“Thanks,” she finally says, moving underneath the covers with a jerky kind of movement that makes her look more clumsy and flustered than she ever wants to look, especially in front of Ty Lee. “Get some sleep, Ty Lee.” 

It’s the way she says her name, the way that it slips from her tongue and into the cold air between them; the way that it fits so perfectly in the shape of her mouth; the way that it’s more natural to say _Ty Lee_ than it is to say her own name; the way it falls like snow and melts into the ground that reminds Mai of the burning in her chest. It’s the way that Ty Lee nods at her name that makes Mai crumble inside. 

“You too, Mai.” 

And it’s that way—the way that Ty Lee murmurs her name, makes it sound like a hymn, like a prayer, like a promise; the way that it feels more of a home than her own body does; the way that Ty Lee smiles when she says it and it lights up her face as if she’s spilling stars from her tongue rather than names; the way that it wanders between them until Mai swallows it dry that reminds her of all the love she holds for Ty Lee. It’s the way that Ty Lee exhales gently that makes the love simmer again. 

“Goodnight,” Mai whispers, and Ty Lee turns from her to shut the lamp off. 

“Goodnight,” Ty Lee whispers back, and the light goes off with a click and a whisper. 

She didn’t think she would be able to fall asleep, but with the light off, the sound of Ty Lee’s deep, even breathing lulls her into a kind of half sleep. That night, eyes squeezed shut and body stiffly held away from Ty Lee, Mai dreams of a circus. 

It’s a common dream, probably brought on by all of the time she spends wandering between black and white tents and listening to the sound of bells. It’s different this time, though. This time, Mai finds herself in the big top ring, and the stands are burning. 

There are no audience members, but the fires in the stands are raging with the same kind of cheering that an audience does when they see someone fly. Mai sees the ring from above—she watches Ty Lee, in the ring, spin in a circle, looking around at the fiery stands in a panic. The flames, Mai realizes, are the audience, and they are laughing. 

Mai is just watching, but there’s a tightness in her chest that threatens to claw its fingers into her lungs until it bursts, and she knows she’s ready to cry. But before she can call out, try to find some version of help, some kind of savior for Ty Lee, the flames around the ring part. 

Mai steps from between the flames, walking slowly and seems immune to the heat of the fire. She walks into the ring and the flames behind her surge back into place, as if she had never parted them. Ty Lee swivels towards her desperately, hands reaching out for help, and Mai starts to run towards her. 

The ring is only so wide, but it takes years for Mai to reach her. Each step is a month, each breath is a century. She goes as fast as she can, Mai knows how hard she is trying, but the closer she gets to Ty Lee, the more she feels herself age. Her steps become unsteady, she reaches out and her skin begins to wrinkle, she cries out and her voice turns hoarse. Ty Lee is still standing in the center of the ring, and as Mai gets closer, she can hear her crying. She’s shaking, her breath coming too hard and too fast, but Mai can’t get to her fast enough. 

From her vantage point above the ring, Mai can’t do anything. She can only watch herself grow old, slump her shoulders, falter as each step grows heavier, as her clothes begin to sag over a shrunken body, sleeves slipping off of her shoulders, a knife clattering to the ground the farther she goes. They fall with a flash of light, hitting the dirt and somehow still making a deafening cracking noise. The blades split into shards, and Mai can see her reflection in the middle as her face turns to crevices of skin and sagged lines at the corners of her eyes. 

She can see herself scream, but her voice is turning weak and aching, and Mai can feel it ripping at her throat. In the center of the ring, Ty Lee falls to her knees. She hits the ground and disappears. Her clothes fall to the ground, folds of pink fabric catching the dirt and getting caught in knots of ribbon. Ty Lee’s body is gone, vanished into thin air. 

Mai watches herself stop running. She stares at the spot that Ty Lee had stood in, stares at that empty space, that hollow void where she used to be, and does nothing about it. She stands still, as fragile as she is old, as helpless as she is lonely. Around the ring, the fire cackles. 

When she wakes up, she’s crying. The tears have dried, but they stick to her face in a show of salt and fear. Her eyes are puffy, she can already tell, and she reaches up to rub at them before freezing. 

In her sleep, she wrapped herself around Ty Lee, tangled her leg between Ty Lee’s legs, pushed her chest against her back. She has one arm tossed over Ty Lee’s waist, moving as she breathes in and out. Ty Lee doesn’t seem to have noticed, just seems to have curled up against Mai’s body and let herself fall into the warmth. 

Mai takes a deep breath; she can smell the perfume Ty Lee wears, a kind of lemon scent that fills her nose and whites out her brain for half a moment. Slowly, she pulls away, moving her arm away and pulling back. Before she can completely disentangle herself, though, Ty Lee murmurs something in her sleep—more of a whisper than a word, more of a groan than a complaint—and reaches her arm back. Her hand finds Mai’s arm and pulls it back around her, tugging Mai closer. 

Mai can’t do anything but let herself be taken over, let Ty Lee push their fingers together and let herself hold Ty Lee closer. Her forehead is pressed against Ty Lee’s neck and her breath hits her back, but Ty Lee doesn’t seem to mind. Mai closes her eyes, breathes in lemon and exhales the dream. Ty Lee keeps her eyes shut, lost in her own sleep, but Mai hopes she’s smiling.


	8. Chapter 8

When Mai wakes up again, Ty Lee is gone. The bed is still warm, and Mai shifts to pull the blankets up to her chin without opening her eyes fully. For a moment, she doesn’t remember the events of the previous day. She just lays there in the bed, sinking into the mattress, which is so much softer than her own— that’s what finally wakes her up. 

She’s not in her own bed, but in Ty Lee’s bedroom. She’s sleeping there, trying to keep off the memory of Zuko and his fire. Mai’s eyes flash open, and she takes in the rest of the bedroom. It’s simple, just a desk piled with books and other knick knacks collected from Ty Lee’s tours around the country with her previous circus. There’s some kind of glass bauble, a few bottles filled with colorful marbles, paper fans, origami—enough that Mai turns away before she recognizes all of it. 

It takes a few minutes before Mai pulls herself out of bed, finding her way down the hallway and into what seemed to be the kitchen, dining room, and living room all at once. It was a similar layout to Mai’s own apartment, and probably to all of the apartments in the city. Without having to think about it, Mai walks into the room, immediately caught up by the smell of pancakes sizzling on the stove. 

“Morning,” Ty Lee says, and Mai blinks. She’s already dressed and mostly ready for the day, one hand holding a spatula and the other holding a fork, but there are shadows under her eyes that make Mai break a little bit. “I’m making breakfast, if you’d like some.” 

Mai only nods, tugging awkwardly at the shirt Ty Lee had given her the night before. It was too small— as all of Ty Lee’s clothes were on Mai— but it was soft enough. 

Ty Lee turns back to the pancakes, hair shifting against her shirt with a swoosh. She hasn’t braided it yet, and it slips around her shoulders in waves. “Did you sleep okay? 

“Alright,” Mai lies, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “Weird dreams.” 

“You talk in your sleep, you know.” Ty Lee smiles to herself, flipping over one of the pancakes. “Kept muttering something about a circus and an old woman. What was that about?” 

Mai licks her lips, dropping her gaze to her hands on the table. The dream had been about Ty Lee, but she was never going to admit that. “No idea. It was probably nonsense.” 

“If you want to talk about it…” Ty Lee turns the burner up slightly, then glances over at Mai. “I used to interpret dreams, you know. It was one of my side jobs when my sisters had their turns performing.” 

“I thought all that dream interpretation was bullshit,” Mai says, leaning back in the chair. The legs are uneven and she wobbles slightly as she moves. “Made up to get more money.” 

Ty Lee smiles, one of those smiles that lifts up half of her mouth and makes her blush just slightly. “It depends who is doing the reading. I happen to know what I’m talking about.” She looks intently at the pancake batter, nudging it slightly with the fork. “It’s all about what’s in the subconscious. Dreams are when those things come out, all the things that you’re pretending don’t exist.” 

“I hate dreams,” Mai mutters, but Ty Lee only laughs. 

“Tell me about it,” she suggests. She turns the burner up again, clearly impatient. 

Mai sighs, squeezing her fingers together. “I was in a circus ring, and trying to get to someone in the center. There was fire all around the ring, and I knew that person was in danger. I tried to get to them, but I was aging, and I couldn’t run fast enough. By the time I got there, the person had disintegrated.” 

Ty Lee nods slowly, humming. She flips over the second pancake on the stove, the other side browned and golden. “Do you know who the person was?” 

Mai looks over at Ty Lee, runs her eyes over the waves of hair and the pink shirt and the slight bend of her wrist as she prods at the pancakes, and lies. “No.” 

“It’s probably something to do with wanting to get to them,” Ty Lee says. She doesn’t look at Mai, and Mai wonders how much Ty Lee can see through her. Mai might be a good liar, but Ty Lee is just as intuitive. “But you’re running out of time, I think.” 

Mai swallows, gripping her hands tighter, until one of her knuckles cracks and she lets go of a breath. “Good to know.” 

“Anyways,” Ty Lee says, suddenly brighter. “Pancakes are ready.” 

The sudden switch in topics makes Mai laugh, just under her breath, but Ty Lee beams. She already has a pile of pancakes sitting to the side of the stove, so she just piles the new ones onto the plate. 

“I’ll be honest,” Ty Lee says, setting the plate on the center of the table, “I don’t actually have any other clean plates or utensils.”

That, finally, is what makes Mai grin. “Eat from here with our hands?” 

“Good enough for me,” Ty Lee says, laughing. “Syrup?” 

“Good enough for me,” Mai echoes, and watches as Ty Lee digs around the cabinets for a bottle of syrup and, finding a nearly full one, pours it over the plate. It’s messy and the syrup is sinking into the warm pancakes too quickly, but that morning, it doesn’t matter. Ty Lee sits down across from her, and smiles. 

Their eyes meet for half a second, just long enough to make Mai’s cheeks burn as she smiles, and then they both reach for the pancakes. Their hands don’t linger a moment too long, and their fingers don’t brush, but Mai takes one of the pancakes into hand and tears off a piece, watching as Ty Lee does that same: they're a mess and sticky and laughing and that’s more than— not love, Mai refuses to say that— but something. 

“This is a mess,” Ty Lee says between mouthfuls of pancake. There’s a drop of syrup on her chin, and when she wipes it away with the back of her hand, it leaves a sticky line on her skin.

Mai can’t help but laugh. This— this mess and laughter and sticky hands and maple syrup— isn’t something she would have ever allowed herself to do if it weren’t with Ty Lee. Mai’s parents had so tightly ingrained a proper, stiff attitude in her, and the tension of the circus had done nothing to calm the anxiety that always lived just behind her ribcage, that letting go like this had never occurred to her. But with Ty Lee, nothing had ever seemed more natural. 

They eat the rest of the pancakes like that— fast and hungry and messy and laughing. It’s not long before they’re all gone, and the two of them are leaning back in their chairs and holding their sticky hands away from their clothes. 

“Those were really good,” Mai says, nodding towards Ty Lee. “Thank you.” 

“Of course,” Ty Lee says, taking a long breath. “It’s the least I can do for my guest. Especially since I asked you to come.” 

Just like that, everything seems to shift. To harden. To quiet. 

“I…” Mai shrugs, trying to make nothing out of something that was so entirely _everything._ “I think I needed company too. I shouldn’t have been alone.” 

Ty Lee swallows visibly. “He’ll be okay.” 

“Right,” Mai says, but she doesn’t believe it. “Azula will— she’ll give us an update. When we get to work.” 

Ty Lee nods. “We should get cleaned up before we go. I can clean up dishes if you want to shower and change and everything.”

Mai nods, but doesn’t really process any of it as Ty Lee brings her to the bathroom, handing her a towel and telling her to use anything that was in there. Mai could only really take the towel in silence, stepping into the shower with hands still covered in maple syrup and the guilt of having ever laughed at all. 

After that, the two of them get ready to leave without words. It’s painful, almost, to allow themselves to be together and to talk and to be okay all while knowing that Zuko is sitting in the hospital and… Mai doesn’t even know. She doesn't know if he’s even alive. Some awful part of her just wants him to be out of pain, whatever that meant. She banishes those thoughts, though, and focuses on the sound of the road spinning by as Ty Lee drives them both to the circus. 

It doesn’t get better once they reach the circus. If anything, it gets worse. 

Everyone works, not in silence, but in whispers. In rumors, in fears, in judgement. How could such a thing happen—how could he let himself—how could it go so—how could this—why did this—what will—who will— 

Mai can’t stand it. 

She gets ready for the show—finds her knives and costume and targets—and then makes herself disappear. Behind all of the tents is a forest, where the trees stand up in a shadowed line, blocking the clearing of the circus away from the rest of the world. Or, maybe they’re blocking the rest of the world away from the circus. Mai doesn’t want to think about it too hard. 

She doesn’t have to go far into the woods before she gets to a tree marked by the imprints of knives. It’s still a bright day outside, and the sun slips through branches in rings, landing on the carpeted forest in spotlights. Mai runs a hand over the bark of the tree, finding the dents and cracks in the wood where she had left her mark. It’s an old habit to come out to this tree and throw knives when she gets stressed, and the trees all seem to know that. This particular tree is wide, too wide for Mai to reach all the way around, and has a thick bark that only barely breaks when she pierces it. It’s good target practice, and a good release. 

Mai walks backwards a little more than a dozen feet, finding a straight path between the trees. The knives are lined up carefully at her wrists and thighs, and the cool metal presses against her arm guards like a comfort blanket. 

In one sharp movement, she pulls a knife into her right hand and snaps her wrist, the knife flipping over and hitting hard against the tree, where it wobbles for a second and then sticks. She takes a deep breath, staring at the knife in the tree, the silver glittering under the sun. From her distance, the crimson-painted handle seems only to be a shadow. 

Mai inhales, and snaps another knife towards the tree, her exhale is the slice of another blade, her next breath is the wincing of the tree. She throws the knives until her wrists ache and her fingers burn, until her breath comes hard, until a drop of sweat falls into her eye, until all of her blades are stuck in the bark of the tree in a thin slice of a line, perfectly straight. 

She stares at the line of knives she’s made, at the way the sun falls against the blades and burns them up like a string of fairy lights. Mai listens to the wind as it winds through the trees, brushing through her hair and pulling black strands free of the buns she always wears. She takes a deep breath, tasting the pine trees on her tongue, and then walks towards the tree. 

Pulling the knives free and gently putting them back in the holsters under the loose fabric of her outfit, Mai forces herself to think only of this routine: of pulling the knife free, wiping the dust off of the blade with her shirt sleeve, spinning it in her palm to check for scratches, slipping it back beneath her clothes. Nothing, for this moment, is supposed to matter. This is supposed to be enough. 

But still, her mind wanders. This is routine, this is muscle memory. There are more pressing things in the world than the slowly sinking sun. She steps back to her earlier position and starts throwing the knives again. It’s a short snap of her wrist, the smooth release of her fingers, the flipping of the knives as this cut through the air and hit their mark. It’s both natural and unsure. She knows what it’s like when a knife is thrown out of place and hits skin, she knows that pain. It’s so easy to mess up, but it’s so easy to stand in these woods and throw knives until the tree trunk is covered in thin but deep cuts. 

“I always forget how good you are.” 

Another knife breaks from her hand and hits the tree, cutting through the air even as Mai spins around to come face to face with Ty Lee. 

“What?” 

Ty Lee nods towards the tree, where the knives are in a perfectly straight line. “I don’t watch your show often enough. So I forget.” 

Mai doesn’t mention the night before, when she caught Ty Lee watching her from the stands. She doesn’t mention the rush she got when she knew Ty Lee was there. 

“Usually, I’m getting ready for my part,” Ty Lee continues, “and I don’t have enough time. I always try to get ready fast enough, and sometimes I do, but still… I don’t get to watch as often as I’d like.” 

“Oh,” is all that Mai can say. She doesn’t know what else is left. 

Ty Lee nods. She looks over to the tree, and then back at Mai. “Anyways. You’re good. I shouldn’t forget that.” 

Mai shrugs. “It’s okay. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Sure,” Ty Lee says. It’s not because she agrees, Mai can tell, but because she doesn’t want to argue. “I thought I’d find you out here, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

“I’m fine,” Mai lies, but Ty Lee just shakes her head slowly. 

“I know you’re not.” 

Mai looks at her, studying the tilt of her head as she speaks, watching the unusual out-of-place hair at her forehead, examining the lipstick caught at her front tooth. “You’re not okay either.” 

“What’s your point?” 

Mai swallows, turning away. She takes another knife from her sleeve, positioning herself in front of the tree. She can feel Ty Lee standing next to her, bouncing slightly on her feet as if she can’t stand still. Mai’s chest is suddenly running warm, her skin heating up even in the cold. She throws the knife and wishes it would cut through all of her feelings and fears and hopes and stupid dreams of fire. It hits the tree, but it offers no healing. 

“People who are okay,” Ty Lee says slowly, “don’t throw knives like that.” 

“People who are okay don’t throw knives at all.”

“Talk to me,” Ty Lee murmurs, stepping towards Mai. 

She reaches over, her hand touching the hollow of Mai’s spine, light and airy, as if she weren’t there at all. Mai freezes, staring straight ahead, refusing to turn back to Ty Lee. Ty Lee steps closer, and Mai can hear her breath. 

Mai closes her eyes, and leans into Ty Lee’s touch, just barely. There are so many things she could say— about Zuko, about Azula, about love, about the way she throws knives as if it is the last thing she has left in the world, about the way Ty Lee falls again and again and how Mai wants to catch her, about the way that fire has burnt into her mind and won’t let go— but she doesn’t say any of them. She just exhales, and turns around to face Ty Lee.

They face each other, eyes meeting, for just a moment. Ty Lee’s eyes, Mai realizes, are gray, this kind of deep gray that makes Mai think of clouds, of the sky, of storms, of thunder, of dreams. Mai takes a sharp breath, and wonders—if she leaned down just an inch— 

Ty Lee wraps her arms around Mai, pulling her close. She buries her face in Mai’s shoulders, her body warm against Mai’s body, and Mai freezes there. Ty Lee is shaking, just slightly, and Mai wonders how badly she had needed this hug. 

It’s a half-second of stillness, and then Mai wraps her arms around Ty Lee and decides that, for the moment, this is all she needs. _Running out of time,_ Ty Lee had said. Tonight, Mai refuses to run out of any more time. She holds Ty Lee tightly, and Ty Lee holds her too, and they stand in the woods, surrounded by trees with knives and initials in hearts, and they cry without tears. It’s enough.


	9. Chapter 9

It’s not until just before the night begins that Azula finds Mai and Ty Lee, sitting on a picnic bench in the dining tent. _He’s going to be okay,_ she says, as if somehow that’s going to fix everything. 

It doesn’t, not really. There’s still a hole in the performance where Zuko should have been—one of the other fire breathers had taken his spot, and had done a fine job, but it wasn’t the same. Mai doesn’t sit at the sidelines, captivated in the same way that she had watched Zuko. She doesn’t watch the fire with the same kind of trust that had been there before. 

Fire has never been a safe thing, and it never will be, but at least when Zuko was there Mai knew that someone trustworthy was holding the flames. Now there are just these strangers and Azula—who is increasingly less trustworthy, as desperate to prove herself she is. Mai can’t look at her and forget that she’s the reason Zuko is in the hospital, even if it’s only tangentially so. Azula had been the one to tell Zuko to change the routine, to try things he wasn’t ready for, and Mai doesn’t know how to forgive her for that. 

The only thing that makes her even consider it is the simple way in which Ty Lee looks at Azula and folds her back into the group without hesitation. When that night’s show is over, the three girls sit together behind the tents, at the picnic tables, trying to ignore the silence that begs them to speak. 

“He’ll be okay,” Azula repeats, as if it's not something that they’ve all been thinking about all day. 

“You said,” Mai bites back. 

Azula tightens her jaw, but doesn’t respond. Mai doesn’t apologize. In her mind, there’s no need to. 

She, in some kind of way, loves Zuko. She always has; he’s been the person she goes to for help and comfort and friendship for years now, and she didn’t ever think it would end like this. There’s danger in their circus, but there has also been something comforting about doing it with these people, with Zuko and Ty Lee and Azula. But now, there’s a hole there. 

Mai doesn’t want to think about how the hole is slowly widening, becoming some kind of gaping chasm that threatens to pull her into a void and disintegrate. She can feel Azula pulling away, going somewhere that neither Mai nor Ty Lee can reach her. Ozai, Mai knows, is doubling the pressure on her, and the way Azula is compressing her heart down into loyalty isn’t something that Mai wants to do, no matter how much she tries to want to. 

It’s a few days later when things come to a head and explode in the way that Mai has been waiting for them to do since Zuko got burned. 

“My name is Joo Dee,” the woman says, her lipstick a bright pink and sparkling in the daylight. She has her hair tied up in a tight bun, her suit jacket and skirt tight against her body in a way that must make it uncomfortable to move. She looks, to Mai, like some kind of brainwashed doll. “I’m here for the inspection.” 

“My father is in the trailer at the end,” Azula says smoothly, but Mai can see the shake at her hands, by her side. There’s a hair out of place, and that says everything. “I’ll take you to him.” 

Joo Dee smiles at her, not noticing the whispers of all the onlookers. They stand in rows at the gate, watching as Azula walks down the trodden path towards Ozai’s trailer. He, Azula, and Zuko live on the grounds, but there’s still a sense of grandeur between their living spaces, and Azula and Joo Dee seem to be walking down a red carpet of— not shame, not fear, but an anxious anticipation. 

The performers line up the road, watching, all eyes on Joo Dee and her briefcase. Here for the inspection. 

Mai doesn’t know what she thought would happen after Zuko got burned— they couldn’t just let that slide, couldn’t just pretend that it never happened, however much they all wanted to. But Zuko was still in the hospital, screaming between the skin grafts, and the carnival was under inspection. 

There were safety standards, Mai figures, that they were supposed to conform to, but Mai doesn’t know how many of them they actually did. She knows that there are no nets under their trapezes, and she knows that the fire extinguishers are probably twenty years too old for use, and she knows that her knives aren’t quite within the regular competition sizing. 

So Azula leads Joo Dee back to where Ozai must be waiting, and the same foreboding shadow of Zuko’s performance settles on her shoulders again. 

Ty Lee, apparently, feels the same way. 

“This can’t be good,” she murmurs, glancing at Mai. Her cheeks are tinted pink from the cold, her eyes a bright gray against the quickly shadowing night. “I don’t think Ozai has ever listened to a regulation once in the history of this circus.” 

“Probably not,” Mai says slowly, looking around her. 

Just from what she can see from where she stands, she figures half of it isn’t up to code. All of their equipment is old and rusted, having been in use for what might as well be eons. Mai hasn’t ever felt like she was in danger, but then again, she’s not the one flying or the one getting knives thrown at her heart. 

Behind her, Mai knows that Natsuko is there, even before she speaks. She has a very particular way of breathing; a kind of heavy in-out-out-in-in-out rather than an inhale and an exhale. It’s disconcerting. 

“We’re screwed,” is all that Natsuko says, and Mai is inclined to agree with her. “I’m out before this gets any worse.” 

That’s what makes Mai spin around, eyebrows pinched together. “You’re out?” 

“I just left Ozai’s trailer,” Natsuko says, crossing her arms. She’s never looked colder. “I quit.” 

Mai stares at her. She doesn’t have anything else to do, anything else to say. At her side, Ty Lee seems just as much at a loss for words. 

“You…” 

“Quit,” Natsuko finishes. “This place is going under, I can see it already. You should get out while you can. Besides, Mai, I don’t know how much of a show you’re going to have left if I’m not here.” 

Mai swallows, unable to say anything as she watches Natsuko turn around and begin to walk away. She sways slightly while she walks, her ponytail swinging against her back. There’s a lightness in her walk that Mai has never seen before. Part of her wonders if that lightness really does come with quitting this circus, and part of her wonders if she would bear the same lightness if she quit. Then Ty Lee looks at her, and she forgets that idea. 

“You’re not leaving,” Ty Lee asks, “are you?” 

Mai looks at her, licking her lips lightly. “No.” 

“Good.” Ty Lee looks away, like this has settled all of her worries, and there’s nothing left in the world to be concerned about. “I’m not either.” 

“Good.” 

Mai and Ty Lee don’t look at each other, don’t spare a glance, don’t steal a picture from the corner of their eyes. But they stand there together, looking at the road, and it’s an intimacy that Mai hasn’t felt before. The promise of staying. 

Slowly, waiting for Ty Lee to reject her, Mai twitches her fingers—it’s a small gesture, the tiniest movement, but it makes Ty Lee shift, open up, turn her palm outwards. It’s an eternity before, an eternity during, but they shuffle their hands slightly until they’re intertwined: fingers between knuckles, palms sticking together, Mai’s thumb hooked over the joint at the bottom of Ty Lee’s thumb, sweat sticking just a lightly enough they can ignore it, tender and gentle and unknown and new. 

They still don’t look at each other. They just hold hands. It’s all together perfect, but not complete, but tender, but not full, it’s something in between. The two of them, right now, are something in between. Something unsaid. 

They’re running out of time, Mai is pretty sure. So she holds Ty Lee’s hands, and says, “Thank you,” and doesn’t know what it means. Ty Lee glances at her, finally, and it’s like something releases. The wind sighs again, and the tension is gone. 

“Thank you? For what?” 

Mai looks over at her. The corner of her mouth twitches, the barest part of a smile. “For being here.” 

Ty Lee laughs, more of an inhale than a laugh, but it makes Mai burn—the untrustworthy, that out of control, that twisting fire—anyways. She squeezes Mai’s hand, and makes it something confident. She steps away from Mai, but instead of pulling her hand away, she drags Mai with her. 

“Come on,” she says, laughing for real, “before we all lose our jobs, I want to dance with you.” 

Mai lets herself be pulled along, lets herself fall into the joyous way that Ty Lee moves, as if the air is not a force but a friend. Even the earth parts for Ty Lee.

“Dance with you?” 

Ty Lee nods, speeding up the pace. She drags Mai around a corner, between the tents, until they’re in one of the smaller tents. It’s simple, just another black and white top with a curtain, a handwritten sign outside: TAROT READINGS. 

“Tarot?” Mai asks, letting go of Ty Lee’s hand as they duck through the curtain and into the tent.

There’s no one inside the tent, the only light being what shines through the semi-transparent fabric of the tent. Ty Lee seems to know the tent well enough, though, and Mai waits at the curtain while Ty Lee fumbles for the cord that turns on the outdoor lamps. 

With the lights on, Mai can see the tent fully. It’s what you would expect from a tarot reading tent at a tourist stop: cushions and magical symbols and beaded curtains and satin hanging in loops from the ceiling of the tent. There seem to be every type of fabric hanging around the tent; the lavishness of the colors almost giving Mai a headache. 

“It’s a bit tacky,” Ty Lee says, looking around the tent as if trying to see it the way that Mai does. “But it’s—it’s private, and we can play music.” 

“Right,” Mai says, turning to her. She’s been running on adrenaline, not quite sure where she’s getting the confidence for any of this, but looking over at Ty Lee under the silk and the beads and the lamps, she’s losing her confidence. “You wanted to dance?” 

Ty Lee smiles at her, and Mai can see her own nervousness in bitten lips and slightly squinted eyes. She’s shoved a small table and chairs to the side, opening up room to move around in. Hidden in a corner, on a second small table, there’s a record player that Ty Lee has set up. There’s a crackle of a record, then Ty Lee reaches out her hand. 

_I could stay awake, just to hear you breathing._

Mai takes her hand. 

There’s something simple about it, something about it that Mai understands without having to ask about it. Her parents had made her take dance lessons for years, and while Mai isn’t an expert at all, she knows enough to take Ty Lee’s hand and hold her close. She knows enough to wrap a hand around her waist, enough to let Ty Lee wrap her own arm around Mai’s neck. She knows enough to lean into her, letting their bodies touch and the music wrap around the two of them in ribbons of silk. 

Ty Lee leans into her, and they dance—they spin in small circles around the tent, they hold each other, their feet misstep and catch themselves, they laugh. The song spins on, the record scratching even as the two of them find a comfortable place within each other’s presence. 

Mai is much taller than Ty Lee, and she leans forward just lightly, pressing a small kiss to the top of Ty Lee’s head. It’s the briefest of touches, but it makes Mai blush and Ty Lee shatter. Ty Lee leans in closer, holds her tighter, pressing her cheek against Mai’s collarbone. The skin there is warm, soft, waiting.

Mai sighs, but it’s content rather than tired. There’s an inspection, somewhere in the circus, but here’s, it’s just the two of them. That’s a common theme, Mai notices, that the rest of the world doesn’t really matter as long as Ty Lee is there with her. 

_I don’t want to miss a thing._

Ty Lee pulls away, just for a moment, to look at her. Their eyes meet, and there’s something electric about it, something sharp and hard about it that the rest of the night hasn’t been. They look at each other, and Mai wonders if—if maybe— 

“Can I kiss you?”

The question is soft, unheard of, but so, so welcome. Ty Lee is looking at her, lips parted, the question hanging in the arm between them in the same way that the music does. When Mai nods, it’s familiar. It’s a song she sung a thousand times, it’s a poem she’s memorized years ago, it’s a wanting that she’s always had. 

Ty Lee has to lean upwards, just on the tips of her toes, and Mai folds her hands tighter around her waist. It’s an awkward position, and it’s strange, and their teeth click for half a second, but Mai forgets it all; Ty Lee’s lips are on her own, and it’s this soft, gentle, movement that makes Mai shiver. Something is running in her that has been lit in flame, in something hot and loud and begging. 

Ty Lee pulls away, and she smiles at Mai and it’s the most beautiful thing in the world. 

“Been waiting a long time for that,” Ty Lee murmurs, her lips kiss-pink and her words hot-quiet. “A long, long time.” 

Mai smiles at her, grins, uncontrolled and unsure and brilliant. She leans down and kisses Ty Lee again, and it’s a moment so inherently wonderful that she forgets to memorize it. She doesn’t have to. Ty Lee is burnt into her skin—a second promise to stay, this one in a kiss rather than a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song ty lee plays: [ i don't want to miss a thing, aerosmith](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkK8g6FMEXE)


	10. Chapter 10

It’s funny—how few things change with a kiss. How the world doesn’t turn upside down, how the sky isn’t suddenly pink and the grass doesn’t melt beneath your feet and the sun doesn’t go out. But also, it’s funny—how few things matter when Mai is kissing Ty Lee. 

It’s like the world, for just a moment, pauses. Nothing there, nothing gone, nothing to hold them back. There’s just this quick slip between them, the tiniest of kisses and the deepest of touches. The world, for just a moment, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter that the sky is still blue and the ground is still hard and the sun is still bright. It doesn’t matter that they’re in this tarot reading tent, surrounded by cliché lamps and silks and cards. It doesn’t matter that Mai is just now realizing she hasn’t had anything to eat today, and that maybe she shouldn’t have skipped breakfast. It doesn’t matter that the earth is spinning, because that’s just what it’s supposed to do, and kissing Ty Lee is just what Mai is supposed to do. 

“I’m late for inspections,” Ty Lee murmurs, but she’s still leaning into Mai, still has her arms around Mai’s shoulders, pulling herself closer and closer. “That woman needs to come inspect the safety lines. So nothing else goes wrong.”

“You should probably go to that,” Mai says. She kisses Ty Lee again. “Don’t let me distract you.” 

“You?” Ty Lee asks, mockingly surprised. “Distract me? Well, that’s never happened before.” 

Mai smiles, a loose and free smile, one that she only feels when Ty Lee is there. Now, Ty Lee is so incredible _here_ that Mai can’t separate herself from Ty Lee. She doesn’t know where Ty Lee stops and where Mai ends— the smiles, the laughs, the lips, the wanting; it’s all made for the both of them to share. 

“You really should go,” Mai says, voice low. 

Ty Lee looks at her, frowning. “You don’t want me to stay?” 

“Of course I want you to say,” Mai breaks in immediately. It’s a rush of a sentence, and she pauses afterwards, as if she’s not sure what comes next. “But I also don’t want you to get fired.” 

“I’m not going to get fired,” Ty lee says, “they need me. I’m the starring act.” 

Mai smiles at her again, lips cracking just slightly to show her teeth. “Fair enough.” 

“Come on,” Ty Lee says. “Let’s get out of here.” 

“Where to?” 

Ty Lee shrugs, stepping past Mai and towards the curtain flap. She doesn’t seem bothered by the lack of a plan, she just seems ready to take on the rest of the world. Mai isn’t quite sure how she does that— dedicate herself so wholly to a motion, to an idea, and never look back. Not dangerously, not carelessly, but bravely.

Brave is the word that Mai would use for Ty Lee, she decides. Brave enough to kiss her when Mai was begging for the music to say the words for her. Brave enough to stand on a trapeze and catch herself during the fall. Brave enough to look back at Mai and smile and take her hand and oh, they’re holding hands now. 

“Coffee?” Mai suggests, squeezing Ty Lee’s hand. “There’s a nice place just a bit from here.” 

Ty Lee smiles at her. “Sounds good to me. Race you to my car!” 

It’s such a childish thing, but Mai is learning to let go, she thinks, learning to find the little pleasures in life. There are small things, she’s realizing, that matter. Things that stand out among all of the things Mai can’t bring herself to care about. There’s pancakes and kisses and racing Ty Lee through the sodden grass to an old car. 

She doesn’t have to be perfect and still and strong all of the time, Mai decides. Sometimes she can let go of her knives and just run. 

So she does. 

She runs. 

She chases after Ty Lee—and isn’t that what she’s always been doing, anyways?—and she goes faster and faster and faster, and lets the wind run through her hair and the clouded skin wash her skin in just the lightest of golds and allows the mud hit at her ankles until her calves are covered in sprays of dirt. 

“Beat you,” Ty Lee laughs, leaning against the car. 

Mai groans as she catches up, all of her hair tossed out of place and into frizzes by the wind. Ty Lee’s not even winded, just grinning at her while she tosses the keys up and down in her hand. 

“Come on,” Ty Lee says, “get in. You’re on directions.” 

Mai walks over to the other side of the car, mouth in a line and hiding the most beautiful of smiles. Driving with Ty Lee is something familiar, something that she knows how to do. Ty Lee hands over her phone, and Mai pulls up music and directions, and they drive. 

It’s technically their lunch break, so they’re not skipping out on work, not really, but Mai can’t help but feel just the slightest bit of guilt as they drive away from the circus. The GPS points them eastward, and Ty Lee turns into the place where the sun had risen. 

“What do you think is going to happen with the inspections?” Mai asks, just for want of something to say. 

The air between them is charged, the music weaving with the tension between them, Mai looking between Ty Lee’s lips and eyes and pretending that she isn’t. Ty Lee is watching the road ahead of them, but Mai could swear that her cheeks were pink. 

“I’m not sure,” Ty Lee says slowly. “I mean it’s not a technical fault that… you know. It’s just… you know.” 

Mai does know. She doesn’t want to, but she does. It wasn’t that the fire did anything that fire wasn’t supposed to do. It wasn’t that there was some oversight in the equipment. It was just that Azula had encouraged Zuko, and Zuko had done things he wasn’t ready for. And Ozai was doing nothing to help them.

“You think all the other equipment is up to date?” Mai asks. 

Ty Lee shrugs, one hand tapping out the rhythm of the song on the steering wheel. “It probably is. The trapeze system, at least. I don’t see why it wouldn’t be.” 

“That’s not necessarily a reason to trust it,” Mai says softly. She turns, looking out of the window and seeing only her reflection. She turns back to Ty Lee. “I’d rather you didn’t get hurt.” 

Ty Lee smiled, glancing for half a second at Mai before turning back to the road, making the left the GPS asked for. “I’d rather you didn’t get hurt, either.” 

“Thanks,” Mai says, looking at the road ahead of them. The coffee shop is on their right, and Ty Lee turns into the parking lot in one swift movement. “We’re here.” 

“So you’re one of those people?” Ty Lee says, grinning. “Who announces that we’re here, even when we all know?” 

Mai rolled her eyes. “Sue me.” 

Ty Lee only laughs, setting the car in park and turning the key in the ignition. She looks at Mai, eyes bright. “No, I think it’s cute.” 

Mai doesn’t have anything to say to that. She just unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car and tries to pull any blush off of her face. She’s not used to compliments, especially not in the way that Ty Lee gives them. Like they’re something obvious, that everyone should know. Like everything she says is a fact, and she’s amazed that Mai doesn’t already know it. 

“So,” Ty Lee says, waiting for Mai before walking up to the front door of the coffee shop. “What’s good here?” 

Mai opens the door for her, already glancing towards the menu. It’s been a while since she’s been here, and she can’t actually remember what’s good and what she didn’t like. She used to come here with Zuko, and she remembers hating the drinks he got, but loving her own. 

It’s a small coffee shop; just a few scattered tables and a bar with glass cases of pastries, freshly made. Above the bar where the cash register sits is a chalkboard with the menu written on it, the chalk partly smudged between letters. 

“The caffè breve is good,” Mai says slowly, mostly guessing as she scans the board. “And the macchiato.” 

Ty Lee nods, standing at her side and peering up at the board. She looks at it with the same intentness as she looks at the trapeze when she’s doing her routine. Mai keeps her smile to herself. This, she decides, isn’t something Ty Lee needs to know. But Mai will take it and bury it in her mind, file it along with everything she knows about Ty Lee, and look back at it with a fondness she can give to nothing else. 

“I think I’ll try that then,” Ty Lee says. “You ready to order?” 

Mai glances at the board one last time then nods, and the two of them go up to the cash register. There’s just one worker, a bored high school student who looks like he would rather be anywhere else. Mai orders them a latte and a macchiato, and prays that Ty Lee likes her drink. 

They talk while they wait, finding nothing and everything to speak about. There’s the possibility of faulty equipment (“I’m sure it’ll be fine”) and there’s the upcoming car inspection Ty Lee is sure she isn’t going to pass because the engine light has been on for several days now (“and you’re letting me in that thing?”) and the last conversations they had with their parents (“see you soon,” Ty Lee said, and “see you never,” Mai said). 

It all comes with an ease that Mai is grateful for. They’ve kissed, but they can still talk to each other and they can still find things to say. Ty Lee hasn’t disappeared, and Mai hasn’t run away. Two very good, but unexpected, things. 

They get their drinks to go, and decide to have them in the car while they drive back to the circus, since they’re getting low on time. Ty Lee drives slowly, letting the two of them enjoy the sound of wheels on concrete and the light as it falls in through the windshield. 

It’s the first sip of Ty Lee’s drink that makes Mai decide she’s never going to give her a suggestion again—“what even _is_ this?” 

“Is it that bad?” 

Ty Lee swallows another sip of the drink, grimacing. She puts the drink back in the cup holder, trying to pull her face back from the contorted bitterness. “It’s good.” 

Mai raises her eyebrows, looking doubtfully at her own drink. “You don’t have to lie.” 

Ty Lee sighs. “It’s horrible.” 

“Sorry,” Mai mutters. She takes a sip of her own drink and, yeah, okay. It’s pretty terrible. These must have been the drinks Zuko hated. “I swear it was good the last time I went.” 

“I believe you,” Ty Lee says, giving her a smile, but it’s definitely fake. “Oh well. At least now we know not to go here.” 

Mai nods, sighing. She had had high hopes for this—though she wasn’t quite sure what “this” was. A first date? A cup of coffee between friends? A cup of coffee between friends that kissed once (twice, three, four times) and never will again? 

“You’re thinking about something,” Ty Lee says, still looking at the road. 

Mai bites the inside of her cheek, wondering if this is a question she wants answered. “Are we—can we just—I know we—” 

“Mai,” Ty Lee says, stopping her. She looks over for a moment, and that moment is all that Mai needs. 

“Did you maybe want to go on a date?” 

Ty Lee smiles at her. Her face is round and bright and her cheeks are pink and Mai wants so badly to kiss her. “I thought we just did.” 

“I’ve decided that it doesn’t count if the coffee is bad.” 

“Fair enough,” Ty Lee says, laughing. 

It’s a moment before Mai is able to join in. But the sound of laughter is soaking into her chest and burning there, another fire that Mai is holding within herself. But it’s also, now, a fire she isn’t afraid of. It’s Ty Lee and something beautiful. Things, Mai decides, are good. 

She doesn’t have the words to say it, not yet, but she looks over at Ty Lee and counts down the seconds until their first date. She watches the way her lips part when she laughs, her hair thrown behind her shoulder carelessly, the wrinkles at her shirt. There aren’t words for it. Maybe there will be, in time. 

For now, Mai enjoys the moment. She enjoys the laughter and the drive and the really, really bad coffee, and she sinks into the feeling of—whatever the opposite of boredom is. Joy. Mai takes a sip of her coffee out of a desperate need for caffeine, and waits for all the many joys left for her to find. 

Except it’s the next day that Ty Lee falls for the first time, and somewhere in that hundred-foot drop, everything comes undone.


	11. Chapter 11

They met four years ago. 

Mai watched the girl in pink fly, and she wondered what it felt like to fall. She looked on as the girl gripped the trapeze and let go without any hesitation or fear, letting herself flip from a thousand feet up to another swinging bar. It was effortless, like Mai was watching someone run with the wind, letting it carry them. Though Mai could feel her own sharp intake of breath every time the girl flipped over, there’s no sign that the girl felt any fear. 

Mai wasn’t sure how long she stood there. She was half hidden under the stands, one hand on the wooden supports and leaning out into the aisle. From where she stood, she didn’t have the best view, but she still couldn’t stop watching. It was a beautiful, entrancing kind of flight, even more thrilling just by virtue of being new. Maybe it’s that, the unfamiliarity, that kept Mai watching, or maybe it’s the way that the girl folded herself so effortlessly around the bar.

The girl was trying out a new routine, showing her tricks off to Jin, the other trapeze artist. Jin stood by herself at the safety lines, watching with a sharp gaze, analyzing every movement. From the look on her face, Mai could tell that this girl was good.

She moved differently than their previous trapeze artist had done—while Aang had jumped from bar to bar with a kind of frantic but practiced energy, this girl was dancing. From what Mai could see, the girl knew the wind by name, every breath choreographed to perfection. Mai recalled the little she had heard about the girl before her first arrival—rumor had it that the girl had never fallen before. Watching her, Mai almost believed it. 

Ozai had a way of finding the most skilled performers he could. There were performers who could find success anywhere they went, but they chose to stay here. Whether it was because of the money or the pure addiction to performance, something about this carnival drew people in and kept them there. 

Mai hadn’t meant to disappear forever, but her parents didn’t follow when she slipped backstage and begged for her an apprenticeship and got accepted just by virtue of asking so much. One night in the audience, watching the cut of a knife thrown through the air, and now all that Mai knew of the world was the heat of flame and the glint of a blade—and now, this kind of flight. 

When Mai finally turned away from the new trapeze artist, some indiscriminate amount of time later, the girl had dropped from the bars and made her way to the ground. May could feel her smile from the stands, even as she looked away. It was the kind of smile that would be contagious if Mai let herself look for too long. She slipped away from the tent and didn’t glance back. It took all of her effort. 

Mai left the tent and tried to let go of any lingering thoughts about the girl. Finding a quiet spot she could slip into—what seemed like the tent for tarot readings but felt more abandoned than anything—she pulled out her phone to make a quick Google search. If she remembered the girl’s name right, and— 

A picture of the girl came up immediately. She was sitting on a trapeze, surrounded by six other girls who looked exactly like her. Mai wouldn’t be able to pick out the new trapeze artist if it weren’t for the fact that she was wearing pink, while the others all had their own varying shades of the rainbow. Her sisters, Mai guessed. Clicking on the link, Mai found herself pulling up an article about the previous circus the girl had been in. Closed for monetary issues. The sisters, the article said, had all joined a competitor circus, staying together as a team. The only scandal was that one of the sisters had split off from the group to join the Carnival of Embers. 

Mai skimmed the rest of the article— the girl had a perfect track record, her coaches had been boasting of her skills since she was a kid, she had never made a mistake before, and she had only ever performed with her sisters. This, Mai thought, would be a new experience for her. Maybe her perfect track record wouldn’t last for that long anymore. 

Mai closed to tab and put away her phone, making her way through the grounds to get to the lunch tent. It was midday, and while all of the performers technically were supposed to be there, most of them found would wander onto the grounds more leisurely as it got closer to performance time. The only reason Mai was so early was that she liked the feeling of being on the carnival grounds when no one else was. 

There was only barely a line when she got to the dining tent, and it wasn’t long before she settled down at one of the picnic tables with a small plate of food. She’d rather go out for lunch, but her previous ride, Katara, had departed the circus with Aang, deciding to retire from healing all of the sprained ankles that came with the circus. It was a reasonable move, Mai thought, to leave this place while there was still time in your life to do something else.

Mai had no idea what she would do if she left. She also had no idea what she was going to do if she stayed—throw knives for the rest of her life? Ozai wouldn’t want her performing when she got too old. Mai didn’t have any other skills, not really. She could be a sous chef, cutting up celery. 

Before she could get too lost in the thought, though, Azula sat down in front of her with her own plate of food. She was just as confident as ever, moving in one swift movement, free of any unnecessary flourish. The chair was simply pulled back and then she was there, all before Mai could raise an eyebrow. 

“Did you see her?” Azula asked, setting her fork on top of her own plate and tugging the chair closer to the table. “The new girl?” 

Mai glanced up at her, trying to read the way Azula looked at her, trying to find the unspoken words in the crooked smile, the half-narrowed eyes, the impatient tap of her fingers. Curiosity. Boredom. 

“I saw,” Mai said, pushing the pasta salad around on her plate. She never had much of a taste for olives. 

Azula was staring at her with a tilt of her chin that Mai guessed was more of a command than a question. “She’s good. My father said that she was the main act in her last circus.” 

“I can see why,” Mai said absentmindedly, not meeting Azula’s eyes. She was waiting for it, the catch. Azula didn’t do small talk. 

Azula just nodded, leaning back in the chair so it balanced on two legs. She watched Mai like she was having some kind of unspoken debate, unsure if there was something to be said or not. It was tactfully hidden, her face still while she and Mai ate. Finally, “You’ve got to be careful, you know.” 

“Careful?” 

“He’s inspecting all of the acts soon,” Azula said. 

Her voice had hardened— _he,_ Azula said, with a kind of sharp taste that didn’t seem to fit with the way she usually spoke about her father. Less reverence and more frustration. _All,_ Azula had said, with an angry bite that was strange on her lips. 

“You too, then?” Mai asked, staring at Azula. 

Azula nodded—just once, quick, almost unnoticeable. As if it were a secret. Mai wondered if it was. “I don’t know if—I mean, I’m going to be fine. I just don’t know about the rest of the fire dancers.” 

“Zuko,” Mai said, filling in the blanks. 

It was clear what she had meant. Zuko had never fit into the act in the way that Ozai had wanted him to, and Mai could understand any worry that Azula was feeling, if it was there at all. For a moment, Mai thought that maybe Azula really was worried, but then there was another flash of her smile, and Mai dismissed the thought. It was the same smile that she gave when she knew she had won a chess game, or when she was watching a flame flicker just out of control. It was a dangerous kind of smile, but the kind of dangerous that hid complete confidence that everything would work out. Complete confidence that, damn everyone else, Azula would end up on top. And that smile, Mai figured, was an offer. 

“Anyways,” Azula continued, moving past her smile. “I’d just be extra careful these next few days, if I were you. Don’t hit anyone.” 

“I never do,” Mai said, voice dark.

That was a lie; she had made plenty of mistakes during that first apprenticeship, or when something edges her concentration just out of alignment, but that was in training, and she refused to let Azula see any kind of weakness. Not now, when the world—when Ozai—was looking for it. 

Azula, though, just shrugged. She leaned back further in the chair, the threat of falling sending a shiver down Mai’s back as Azula tapped her nails against the table. “Just don’t get distracted.” 

Mai rolled her eyes. “I can make a promise there. There’s nothing here to be distracted by anyways.” 

Except it was then—because the universe hates her—that the new trapeze artist started walking towards Mai and Azula. She walked just as gracefully as she had flown, catching every other gaze as she walked past the tables. She didn’t seem to notice, and Mai wondered if it was she was just that oblivious or if she was doing it on purpose. No one could be that dense as to not see the way that some of the performers were looking at her. 

Mai refused to do the same. She turned away, back to the remaining olives in her pasta salad. There was nothing special about the girl. She was just a trapeze artist, one who was still wearing pink, though this time on a dulled windbreaker that had clearly been in use for years. She was just a particularly talented performer, one whose braid swung as she walked, hitting the farthest parts of her back, tied off at the end with one of those invisible elastics. 

Mai wanted to ignore her, wanted to pretend that it didn’t matter that there was something new to the carnival— and it didn’t matter. She reminded herself that she didn’t have to pretend. The girl, though, still held a big smile. Looking at her, Mai made her gaze harden, trying to unravel exactly what the girl was doing with them. 

“Mind if I sit down?” she asked. 

Her voice was just as bright as Mai would have guessed, a lingering blush at her cheek when she smiled. It’s a sudden contrast to the intense look she had worn while she was flying. All of the steel had left her eyes, her expression fading into something soft and round. She seemed, if anything, gentle. There weren’t a lot of gentle people in a place like this. Mai doesn’t remember the last person she had to treat with delicacy, and she just hoped this girl was stronger than she looked. 

Azula smiled at her, but Mai had known her long enough to see the rapid calculations she was making behind her eyes. “Of course.” 

“Thanks,” the girl said, not acknowledging that freeze to Azula’s words. She just sat down, still smiling. “I’m Ty Lee.” 

It’s a surprise, even to herself, when Mai gives her a nod. Gives her a name. Gives her an offer. 

“I’m Mai,” she said, “I can show you around a bit, if you’d like.” 

The girl— _Ty Lee_ —smiled. “I’d love that.”


	12. Chapter 12

It’s been a long day, even for Mai, who thinks every day is a long day. Joo Dee hasn’t completed her inspection yet; she had spent half of the day going through all of the fire dancing equipment, conducting interviews with all of the fire performers, watching their training, and taking notes on a little clipboard with one of those pens you can click when you’re thinking something over. She had then spent the rest of the day going through the rest of the equipment. By the time that night falls and the show is about to begin, Joo Dee has made it through a third of the circus review, at most. 

But the show must go on, Mai thinks bitterly. Ozai rushes her away from the big top so that they can start getting ready for the evening, and Joo Dee leaves with only the slightest annoyance. She promises to come back for the show, and Mai studiously ignores the pit in her stomach when she thinks about this inspector watching their show. 

It’s not that she isn’t confident in the show, because she is, but there’s something disconcerting about knowing that Joo Dee was out in the audience, watching. Maybe it was the ice in her smile, with just a smudge of pink at her front tooth. Maybe it was the way she spoke to Mai during their interview, as if she knew a thousand things that Mai could never even guess at. 

“What’s it like working in the circus?”

“Fine.”

“Have you ever felt in danger?”

“That’s the point of throwing knives. Danger.”

“It’s a thrill.”

“Yes.”

“It’s an addiction.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Have you ever felt pressured into doing things that you weren’t ready for?”

“I choose my routine.”

“What would you say the work environment here is like?”

“Fine, I guess. Fun. It’s a circus. It’s work.”

“Does Ozai scare you?”

“Isn’t everyone afraid of their boss?”

“I’m not.”

“Sure.”

“If you had to rate it on a scale of one to ten, how safe would you say you feel?”

“I don’t know. Eight.”

“Why not ten?”

“I throw knives for a living. A lot can go wrong.”

“Does it?”

“Obviously, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“This interview won’t be helpful if you don’t cooperate.”

“Sorry. Do you have any more questions?”

“Yes.”

And so on. By the time that the interview was over, Mai thought she was ready to throw knives at Joo Dee. She hated answering questions, and the interview felt more like an interrogation than anything else. But, watching the cars start to fill the parking lot, she figures that it probably was an interrogation. Joo Dee is in one of those cars, Mai knows, and she’s looking to shut down the circus. 

Before the gates fully swing open, Mai finds her way backstage, weaving through the groups of acrobats, jugglers, vendors, gymnasts, contortionists, and every other circus act she could have imagined when she was a kid. They were warming up, whether that meant making weird humming noises before singing, stretching, or walking on their hands. 

Ty Lee was of the latter. Mai found her behind one of the tents, breathing deeply before pushing up into a handstand. She was already in her leotard, her muscles tensing as she stood upside down. Mai walked towards her slowly, half wondering what the world looked like from that angle. 

“Mai!” Ty Lee says, falling gracefully out of her handstand. “I couldn’t find you earlier.” 

Mai shrugs, shoving her hands in the pockets of the windbreaker she wore over her performance outfit. “I was doing my interview with Joo Dee.” 

Ty Lee wrinkles her nose, frowning. “How was it? Mine was horrible.” 

“Pretty bad,” Mai says. “She asked a lot about how safe I felt, and how well I knew Zuko.” 

“What did you tell her?” 

Mai sighs, looking away, anywhere but Ty Lee. Around them, the circus lights are blinking and flashing, and she can hear people flooding through the grounds like an unbreakable tide of cotton candy and quarters and painted faces. 

“I mostly told her the truth. I feel safe, I know Zuko well, yes, I’m upset about it, no, I’m not going to quit.” Mai looks back at Ty Lee. “What’d you say?” 

“About the same thing,” Ty Lee tells her, taking another deep breath. “I know Zuko pretty well, I was surprised when it happened, I don’t think it’s his fault, no, I don’t want the circus to be shut down, I would like to keep my job very much.” 

Mai snorts. “I think we’d all agree on that point.” 

“Natsuko wouldn’t,” Ty Lee points out. “Today’s her last show.” 

“Right,” Mai says, trying to sound as if she hadn’t completely forgotten. Natsuko is her partner in the show, and Mai probably should be keeping better track of her. Or should probably just be nicer to her in general. 

Ty Lee licks her lips, looking at the ground and kicking slightly at the dirt. There are scuff marks against her sneakers, and grass stains over the white. She looks up and away from Mai. “You know that saying? Disasters come in threes?” 

Mai frowns at her, eyebrows bunching together in one thin and crooked line. “Yeah, why?” 

“Just wondering,” Ty Lee says slowly. “I know you don’t believe in those things, superstitions, but… I don’t know. It’s stupid.” 

“Tell me,” Mai asks, tilting her head. 

Ty Lee kicks at the ground again, toe hitting against a clump of grass and pushing it over. “If Zuko was a disaster, then what’s next?” 

“There won’t be anything next,” Mai says. She straightens her back and raises her chin just slightly, as confident as she could be. “Superstitions don’t mean anything. Zuko is a one off incident.” 

“Which is why Joo Dee is inspecting us.” 

Mai sighs. “Yeah.” 

There’s a moment of silence before Ty Lee blurts out, “She didn’t get to the trapezes yet.” 

“What?” 

Ty Lee swallows, looking up at Mai with wide eyes. In the nighttime, the gray seems to glow like moonlight. Like moonlight on rivers, glowing gray and shifting like the water. Ty Lee looks away, and Mai finds her heart beating again. 

“She hasn’t inspected the trapeze stands and lines yet,” Ty Lee says again. “She got to most everything else, but she’s doing us tomorrow. And we’re performing tonight.” 

Mai stares at her for a moment, head tilted. “Are you afraid?” 

“No,” Ty Lee bit back. Then, softer, “No. I’m never afraid, right? That’s my whole thing. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The lines have never broken before, and I know my routine. The point of it is that there’s a risk.” 

Mai nods. “Exactly. So there’s nothing to be worried about. Don’t even think about Joo Dee.” 

“I’m not,” Ty Lee says, taking a breath. “I won’t.” 

The corner of Mai’s mouth tilts up into a kind of quarter-smile. She reaches a hand out to Ty Lee, asking her to take it. She does, and a flower in Mai’s chest blooms. “It’s going to be a great performance tonight.” 

“Right,” Ty Lee agrees, smiling back at her. It’s earnest and honest and beautiful. “Come on, let’s go.” 

Mai nods and squeezes her hand. It’s barely there, and Mai wonders if Ty Lee can even feel her. She wonders if Ty Lee can feel her heart beating through her palm. She thinks maybe all of her love is there, in the palm of her heartbeat. 

They make their way back to the big top, ready for the performance that night. Call time is in a few minutes, and while Ty Lee is more relaxed about it, Mai hates to be late. Back in the big top tent, they let go of each other and head their separate ways.

Natsuko is already lined up next to the wooden block they use for their performance, dressed in the skin tight black suit she wears. The blood-red linings at her chest, waist, and outer legs glitter in the dark. Mai’s matching dress—another blood red thing that falls in curves over her body, with Natsuko’s sparkles at her waist and wrists—glitters similarly in the dark. They look like a pair coming off of a murder and walking into the sun. 

It’s strange to be partnered so closely with someone she couldn’t care less about, and even stranger to look at Natsuko and see her other half. It makes Mai think about Ty Lee, and the way that they complete each other. After a minute, though, Mai tosses away those thoughts. It’s too soon. Everything is happening quickly, but Mai can hold back that river for a little longer. 

The knife performance goes on early in the show, and Mai and Natsuko head over without much to say to each other. It’s just one smile and a nod of the head, and then they’re in the ring. The block spins around, Natsuko attached carefully by leather straps at her wrists and ankles. Mai knows what it’s like to be there, the complete trust it requires, and wonders how Natsuko can trust her. But then again, Mai hasn’t ever hurt her before. There will be no firsts tonight. 

The knives are familiar, the way they curve from her fingers just another part of her body. It’s not like throwing a football or pitching a baseball, but more like letting a piece of her fly. The knives are something she knows, something she can control, even as they dash away from her hand and through the air, leaving a broken cut through the breeze in the tent. 

The show is over before she knows it. Mai and Natsuko clear off the ring while the tech pulls away their equipment. Backstage, Natsuko finally smiles at her. 

“Hey,” she says, her voice rough. Not with emotion, Mai thinks, but something like gratitude. “I just wanted to say that it’s been good, working with you.” 

Mai nods. “It’s been good with you too, Natsuko.” 

“Thank you,” Natsuko murmurs. 

She smiles at Mai, and it brightens her face up enough for Mai to wish that they had been better friends, somewhere along the way. But it’s too late now. Mai has a simple rule—no regrets, not when there’s no way to fix the past. All she can do is nod at Natsuko, drop her hands to her side, and watch Natsuko walk away. All she can do is turn away, turn back to the next act, and watch without thinking about the past. There was no point. 

Mai is very, very good at ignoring things. If she wasn’t, she thinks she might go insane. If, among all of the things that have happened, she can’t let go of some of them, she thinks she might be paralyzed by the fear. But if she lets herself settle her face into steel and push away any worries, if she lets herself set her body into stone and find boredom inside a war, then maybe she can survive a circus. 

She’s missed an act or two, and the fire dancers are coming on. Again, Mai pushes away the memory of Zuko and watches the flame dance around the ring. She wonders where Joo Dee is in the audience and how closely she’s watching this group. She wonders what kind of rating her own show had gotten; if it had been deemed safe enough to continue. Mai had no doubts about Ozai—if Joo Dee said one bad word about Mai’s act, she would be out of the circus, and Mai had nowhere to go. 

Again, she pushes the thought out of her mind and turns back to the fire. It’s a beautiful, captivating thing. Mai can understand why people want to go see it— even she has an impossible fascination with the way that the dancers move the fire between their fingers and over their heads until they scream flame, the fire shooting outwards from the paraffin at their tongues. 

The audience laughs and claps and bangs on the floor of the stands. Again, Mai wonders if Joo Dee is among them, enjoying the performance, or just putting enough notes to shut them down. Without the fire dancers, the only big part of the show are the trapeze artists, and Mai doubts that that’s enough, however good Jin, Ty Lee, and the others are. 

It’s then that the fire dancers spin their last flames, looking like dragons as they burn princes, and bow to the audience before crowding backstage. As they pass by, Mai can still feel the heat of their skin, still hot to the touch as they shove through the performers watching backstage. 

The trapeze is next—the first group goes on without any hassle or disturbance. There’s four of them, all dressed up and ready to fly. Their hands are already chalked and they walk with a confidence that Mai recognizes in every actor that has ever gone on stage. Mai watches them go, climbing up to the rafters and bowing as the music begins. It’s something haunting—the trapeze artists dance to something from the 60s, some jazzy kind of rhythm and blues that only emphasizes the risk of falling. The further they jump, the tighter their hands are when they grip wrists, the deeper the piano gets. 

After the group finishes, Ty Lee and Jin go out for their section of the performance. It’s a double act, a partner dance, an exercise in trust that Jin gives so easily and Ty Lee takes in like a drought to water. Ty Lee smiles as she goes out, and Mai decidedly does not falter in her own stone expression. It’s hard. 

A trapeze is lowered to the ground. This routine is another one that Mai has memorized—each move and toss and catch and fall is embedded in her memory. Each slight turn and loop is clear in her mind. Even as they begin, she can see the next movement. 

Ty Lee reaches the center of the ring, where the trapeze is at eye level. She gets on the trapeze first, pulling herself onto the bar and then standing all the way up. It’s only a few moments before Jin finds herself onto the trapeze, hanging upside down by both knees. The music starts, and Mai shivers at the first notes— _birds flying high, you know how I feel—_

The trapeze is raised, one of the tech crew pulling at the lift. It’s a slow movement, slow enough for Ty Lee and Jin to gather their bearings and prepare themselves for the coming routine. They’re not facing each other, don’t look each other in the eye, but Mai is familiar with the way they press their foreheads together just before getting on the trapeze. To spin and to jump and to fly and to hold on to each other takes a lot of trust, a lot of love. 

At the top of the trapeze, Ty Lee takes a breath, and Jin leans forward, giving the trapeze the slightest swinging movement. Mai’s eyes have barely adjusted to the sudden dark, to the single fogged spotlight on Ty Lee and Jin, when Ty Lee steps backwards off the trapeze. There’s no fuss about it, no fear. She steps backwards and falls down, arms upwards. There’s no time to hold your breath, no time to gasp, and then Jin is catching her wrists, holding her tight as if nothing had happened at all. 

Jin raises her arms, lifts Ty Lee upwards. It’s like she weighs nothing. She pushes Ty Lee upwards, and catches her again, Ty Lee’s arms out, a spread eagle. She’s flying, the light catching the sweat at her forehead, each movement slipping through the air like water in a river. 

She’s lifted up again, this time to wrap her arms around Jin’s waist, while Jin’s arms go to her thighs. It’s an intimate, sensual kind of movement, and while Mai knows logically that she would die if she got onto that trapeze, half of her is watching Jin and Ty Lee and wishing that she could be Jin, spinning up on that trapeze and holding Ty Lee, a million years up in the air and no net below them. 

Ty Lee swings to the side, and the movement appears wild, but Mai knows better—each kick and swing and catch is carefully choreographed and practiced. There’s nothing out of control about this routine. With another swing to the side, Ty Lee uses her momentum to fall upside down again, spotlight catching the bend of her knee, and Jin catches her leg. Ty Lee hooks her knee over Jin’s bent arm, trusting in that impossible strength. It looks like it hurts, it has to, but neither show any sign of pain—Ty Lee concentrates on the music, on the rhythm, on Nina Simone telling the audience how she feels. 

With one leg hooked over Jin’s arm, Ty Lee rotates in a circle, her other leg bent into a triangle and her arms wide like wings. It’s the perfect silhouette of a trapeze artist, the perfect silhouette of two birds or two pieces of heaven come down with the smoke machine and rhythm and blues. The music dances around them in bouts of violin and piano, and Ty Lee soars. 

They rotate once more, until Ty Lee pulls herself up effortlessly, now hooking her knee over both of Jin’s arms. This is one of their biggest moves, Mai knows, this is the string section’s crescendo, the final build. Ty Lee again pulls herself up so that they’re holding each other’s hands and swinging gently. 

It’s beautiful, it’s soft, it’s captivating. They’re as familiar with these movements as Mai is with her knives. As Ty Lee grips onto Jin’s hands, legs dangling, they swing. They love each other, Mai thinks, in the kind of way two arms, two eyes, two lungs can love each other.

Jin pulls her up, and they swing. Ty Lee flips around, twisting her waist and rotating sideways, and Jin catches her hands each time, trusting in each other and in the wind, trusting in the tense of muscle and the curl of fingertips. With nothing but their own wings, they fly. Nina Simone sings, belts, they jump, and it’s freedom, they dream, and Ty Lee drops so Jin can hold hands rather than her legs, the trapeze swings with their combined breath, it’s a _new day,_ and Ty Lee flips as if to be caught. 

She spins. An endless loop, a flip over and a fall. A hiss of breath. A spotlight flickers. 

She falls. Nina Simone reaches for her, Ty Lee’s hands going up to grip onto the music notes and let the singing take over her movements. 

Downwards. Farther. And faster, and, 

Jin drops her hands down and outwards, where she’s supposed to catch Ty Lee’s ankles, is supposed to hold on. And she drops between Jin’s hands, waiting to be caught. Waiting for that faith to follow through. But Ty Lee slips from the hands that have not reached out, falls from heights that do not forgive—and no one catches her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1iwxiu_-b4) is a vid of a trapeze act by cirque du soleil, which ty lee and jin's act is loosely based on. it's not necessary, but i recommend just because it's cool!


	13. Chapter 13

The fall lasts forever. Mai finds herself, back behind the curtain and four dozen feet too far away, reaching a hand out as if to clasp onto Ty Lee’s hand and catch her. But Ty Lee keeps falling, even as Mai’s heart stops. Or maybe it doesn’t stop, maybe it just falls; maybe it falls with Ty Lee and over that forever-long beat of music, Mai can’t hear it hit the ground. 

The lights are still on, even as the song fades. It’s supposed to fade out of Nina Simone and into some other song that Mai suddenly can’t remember, and Ty Lee is supposed to fly with the new song, but Mai can’t hear it. She can hear a pounding in her head, a rush of blood through her ears, her face heating, hand falling limply to her side as she fails to reach out. 

It’s not supposed to go like this. The lights shift, and the show is supposed to go on. But Ty Lee is hitting the ground, hard on her back, the dust of the ring rising in a cloud around her. It’s an imperceptible sound, but Mai watches as Ty Lee jolts against the ground and her head rises up, as if she’ll rise back up, and then slams back into the ground. Above her, Jin is still flying in circles; a vulture. 

Mai doesn’t move. No one else does either. The entire world has stilled, waiting with bated breath for Ty Lee to stand again. The earth doesn’t spin, even as the lights flicker and fog fills the ring. There’s a halting moment where Mai just watches. Where the world turns to smoke and neon spotlights, and Ty Lee is lying on the ground in some fallen spread eagle manner. 

Then the safety crew rushes out, for the second time in several days, and Mai unfreezes. She inhales sharply, trying to take in any rush of cold air that she can get, anything that will wake her up from this dream. But nothing does. No amount of breath, no inhale or exhale, is putting this world back into place. 

Mai runs into the ring. 

She shouldn’t. It’s against every rule that the carnival has— you can’t go into the ring unless it was your performance. You can’t let the audience see you unless you’re supposed to be seen. Otherwise, you’re a shadow. 

But running out there, trying to get to Ty Lee, Mai feels as much of a shadow as she’s supposed to look. There’s something hollow and heaving inside of her, some void that’s pulling in every wisp of smoke and every gasp of the audience. It propels her forwards, gives her some kind of ache in her step that sends her closer and closer to Ty Lee. It’s like in her dream, but this time, Mai isn’t held back by anything. With nothing holding her but the fear of not getting to Ty Lee in time, Mai runs.

Ty Lee is surrounded by the safety crew, who, in their black uniforms, look like shades trying to steal Ty Lee into somewhere beyond this realm. And Mai can’t let that happen. 

She shoves into the group around Ty Lee, finally getting to her, finally able to reach, to touch, to hold— 

She’s breathing. They both are. Ty Lee’s leg is at the wrong angle, and Mai can see blood rippling through her hair and down her neck to spill on the ground. Even in the shadows, Ty Lee looks like bones, slipping through the ground in a leotard of pink and white and a final breath.

“Ty Lee,” Mai whispers. It’s a murmur, a prayer, a plea, a piece of her faith sent into the ground. “Ty Lee—” 

That’s the only thing she has left— the name. _Ty Lee._ It’s all that Mai knows how to say, all that Mai can bring herself to think about. Ty Lee groans, and seems as if she’s trying to shift, but gravity is pushing her back, pushing her deeper and deeper into the ground. Mai mumbles her name again, stuttering over the two syllables as they drip in tears over her lips. 

The music is still playing and Mai wants to scream. She feels it building up inside her, feels it in her throat and against her tongue, but then she looks down at Ty Lee again and the world turns to ice. All of the fire that had been in Mai’s heart freezes, and she reaches her hand out to touch. She finds Ty Lee’s hand, trying to loop their fingers together, but then she’s pushed away and they let go. 

At some point, someone called an ambulance. At some other point, the lights had come on. The audience had been corralled away and back to their cars, and the ring was empty except for the murmurings of other performers in the ring, staring up at the trapeze. Some time between then and now, Mai dropped on her knees to the dust of the ring and stayed there. Ty Lee was put into an ambulance and driven away, the sound of sirens the last music of her routine. Mai is left there in the ring, her hands sticky with blood and sweat and tears. 

It’s Ty Lee’s blood, Mai can see now, with the lights on. It’s a dark red, blooming along the creases in her palm as if to fill the river of her lifeline with the last remnants of Ty Lee. Mai bites back another scream, holding it all inside of her chest, and swears that one day she’s going to explode. 

But at that moment, Mai’s hands are dripping with Ty Lee’s blood and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be clean of it. She knows that there was nothing she could have done to prevent this, she knows that, really, but still— she’s left kneeling in the center of the ring and Ty Lee isn’t with her. 

She remembers the last time they stood in the ring side by side— Ty Lee had hung upside down on the trapeze and Mai had fallen in love. Actually, amendment: Mai had been in love long before that, and she’ll be in love long after this. 

Mai bites down on her bottom lip, hard enough to break the skin and make her eyes tear up a little more. Ty Lee is gone. No, she’s not gone, she’s in an ambulance, and she’s going to be fine. But it was a 40-foot fall, and there was nothing to catch her but the hard, cold earth, and she is not a forgiving creature. Ty Lee had hit the ground hard, and Mai could vividly imagine the sound of a crack and the pain that must have come afterwards. 

She’s crying before she knows it, the tears coming heavy over her eyelids and rushing down sharp cheekbones in marathons. She rubs her palms together, trying to get the stick of blood off of her skin, but it doesn’t help, all she does is grind the wine colored brown further against her pale skin. 

Mai just cries harder. She cries for Ty Lee, and for Zuko, and for herself, and for all of the three disasters that the circus has come across. She cries for the end of the world and the beginning of the new one, ushered in by Joo Dee. She cries because the sirens on the ambulance won’t. She cries because the doctor’s don’t care enough to. 

It takes a minute before she realizes what she’s doing, but between sobs, she’s rubbing her hands against the ground, digging the heels of her palms into the dusty ring, trying to scrape off the blood from her hands. Her hands are staining the ring, only adding to the stain of blood left where Ty Lee had hit the ground and her body had snapped in that grotesque kind of way that leaves Mai crumpling inside. 

Mai rubs her hands against the ground harder, scrubbing her skin clean and only staining her palms more. It’s not until the skin is raw that she pulls back, shifting positions so that she could sit down and pull her knees up to her chest. She tries to forget the blood left on her hands, tries to toss away any thoughts of pain, tries to control her heartbeat. 

Any control that Mai might have once had within her has fallen away and disappeared into the ground that caught Ty Lee. She sits there, curling her knees into her chest and holding herself tightly, eyes squeezed shut. With her eyes closed, she thinks she might be able to drown out the rest of the world. 

To her surprise, it’s not the burning of fire that finally draws her out of that position, but Jin’s hand on her shoulder. Mai flinches when Jin touches her, looking at her with a cutting glare. 

“I didn’t mean— ”

Mai doesn’t give her the chance to say anything more before she pushes Jin’s hand off of her shoulder and stands up. She’s taller than Jin, and she can see her own shadow against the shiver of tears on Jin’s cheeks. “You didn’t catch her. You were supposed to catch her. You were supposed—” 

“I know,” Jin whispers, and then she’s crying too. She’s openly sobbing in a way that might have embarrassed Mai if she herself wasn’t edging on hysterical. “I didn’t mean to drop her, I thought everything was going fine, but I should have known, I should have realized that something was wrong, and I just…” 

Mai stares at her, not sure what to do. She wants to be mad, wants to hate Jin with all of her heart, but she can’t bring herself to do it. All she can do is pity her. 

So Mai doesn’t say anything more. She doesn’t have the words anymore, all she has are her tears and terror. When Jin opens her arms, looking at Mai with some soft, broken expression, Mai lets herself be held. 

It’s nice, for a moment, to know someone who loves Ty Lee as much as Mai loves her, even if in a different way. But when Mai pulls back, she feels the stick of blood on her hands again and breaks. 

“She has to be okay, right?” Jin asks, voice barely a murmur. 

Mai forgets how to nod. She looks at Jin and feels nothing but pity, and that might as well be nothing at all. She steps back, stumbling just slightly against the ground, and looks at her hands. Her palms are now stained with dust and blood and the calluses of knives, and there’s no fixing the remnants of the fall. There’s no pretending. 

“I don’t know,” Mai whispers, voice cracking. It’s vulnerable and broken and so afraid. “I don’t know.” 

Jin nods, and that’s all that Mai can bear to see. She turns away, beginning to walk out of the ring. She doesn’t know where she’s going— it’s not like she has anywhere to go, or any way to get there— but she’s walking. 

She keeps walking. Keeps moving. She shoves her hands into her pockets and tries to remember the last time she touched Ty Lee. In the car, on their way back from coffee. Their hands brushed when they grabbed their drinks from the cup holders just before getting out of the car. It had been the briefest of touches, the smallest of moments, but Mai would give anything for even just one more second of that. 

She walks faster, striding off the grounds of the carnival and finding herself on the highway. There’s no room for pedestrians, and Mai can already predict the honks she’s going to get from passing cars, but she can’t bring herself to care. She just keeps walking, shoes getting scuffed against the concrete as she moves, hands shaking even in her pockets, hair flying into and out of her eyes, lost from the buns and tossed into the wind. She keeps walking aimlessly, just forwards, forwards, forwards, always forwards. 

Mai isn’t sure how long she had been walking when the car rolls up beside her. 

“Get inside,” Azula says loudly. It’s not a question, and when Mai looks at her, Azula’s eyes are hard like diamonds. Precious and sharp. “We’re going to the hospital.” 

Mai can only nod before climbing into the backseat. She had been in Azula’s car before, but she couldn’t help but be surprised when she saw Jin in the front seat, tugging anxiously at the ends of her jacket. There, Mai thought, the three people who love Ty Lee the most in the world all in one car, driving to a hospital. There’s something almost comical about it, but Mai can’t bring herself to do anything but lean her head against the headrest and listen to the sound of the wheels against the road on the way to Ty Lee.


	14. Chapter 14

Hospitals, Mai thinks bitterly, are familiar places. Every hospital seems to be built and designed in the same manner— the same gray walls with tile floors, the same big and open windows that somehow still let in no light, the same smell of bleach and chlorine and plastic, the same registration desk with pamphlets about diseases Mai doesn’t care to know about. It’s familiar to her, she knows it well, and she hates that. 

She’s been here too often, Mai decides. Back when other friends had had accidents at the carnival. Back when Zuko— 

And now with Ty Lee. Now, sitting in the waiting room, putting Azula’s name down as her sister, who happens to be the only available family member, sorry about the inconvenience, ma’am, I don’t know why I’m not listed as next of kin. Mai can’t bring herself to continue the lie; she can’t bring herself to speak at all. She lets Azula do the talking, as she always does. 

While Mai and Azula sit down, perfectly trained to sit still, Jin is pacing the waiting room, arms crossed in and hunched over herself. She’s still wearing her leotard, covered up only by a pair of sweatpants and a well-worn sweatshirt that might have once had a logo on it. Mai watches her pace, the slow, rhythmic circle she makes around the waiting room becoming a drone to focus on. It’s something more than the humming of the lights and the last notes of “Feeling Good” that still resonate in Mai’s head. 

“She’ll be fine,” Azula says, looking at Jin. The pacing is clearly frustrating her, the slight twitch of her eye giving it away. “Sit down.” 

Jin looks over at them. “I can’t— how can you both be so calm?” 

“Calm?” Mai asks, voice dangerously low. She doesn’t know how she got here, and she doesn’t know what Ty Lee did to deserve this, and she doesn’t know why her fists are shaking and every part of her world is colliding in on itself. All she knows is that none of it is calm. “You think I’m being calm?” 

Jin takes a deep breath. “That was bad wording. I just meant—” 

“You meant that I don’t care,” Mai says. It’s hard and cruel and she knows that it's wrong, but she can’t stop herself. The scene is already unravelling and there’s no untangling this twine which has fallen from between her teeth. “You think I don’t care about her— as if— Jesus, you don’t know anything.” 

“Mai…” Jin whispers. 

Mai shakes her head, her hands gripping the fabric of her pants tightly, balled up into fists that hold her stable. “I care about her, I care about— more than you could know.” She turns to Azula, eyes burning, and then back at Jin. “More than you’ll ever know.” 

“Mai, I’m sorry,” Jin says again, and Mai hates the way that Jin says her name, hates the way that it falls from her mouth, because it’s not the way that Ty Lee says it, and it doesn’t sound like music unless Ty Lee is there. 

Mai stands up, hands still shaking, her lips trembling. Her carefully placed facade is falling, hitting the ground and splintering open like arms and legs. “She means— she means the world to me, and she’s lying in that hospital bed because of you, because you couldn’t do your job right, and now— now she’s hurt, she might never recover from this, she could die, and if— if she dies, Jin, that’s on _you.”_

Jin stares at her, eyes wide. Mai can see the tears beginning to well up and spill over, and she knows that she’s gone too far. But at the same time, she meant to. She wanted to lash out, to hurt someone, because it felt like the only people she cared about were getting hurt again and again, and all that Mai had left for the world was anger. Anger and hate and this pure exhaustion fueling her tongue. 

Mai can’t say anything more. She stands in front of Jin, each inhale somehow becoming harder than the next. Mai knows it’s not true— accidents happen, she knows that Jin wouldn’t hurt Ty Lee intentionally, no one would— but she still said that and she can’t bring herself to apologize. She doesn’t know how. 

So instead, Mai takes one last look at Jin before she cries, and then she turns away. She pulls that blank expression back over her face, pushes her lips together into a tight line and squeezes the tears out of her eyes, and then she walks away. 

There’s nowhere to go, not really. It’s a big hospital, but there are only so many places that she’s allowed to wander around. There’s only so many glances from concerned nurses and other visitors that Mai can handle before she needs to disappear. She turns another corner, finding herself at an empty stairwell.

It’s thin and hidden, and there’s a small window letting the light in, and Mai sits at the top step and buries her head in her arms. She doesn’t know how to let anyone see her break— she doesn’t know how to let herself break in the first place. She doesn’t know how to cry. 

But somehow, she keeps doing it. She keeps breaking, she keeps falling apart, again and again and again. The world keeps spinning and every time it spins, it seems to throw more glass shards at Mai’s skin, and there’s only so many cuts than any armored girl can take. 

Despite herself, despite everything, Mai squeezes her eyes shut and cries. It’s silent— not like the ugly, awful cries she had been imagining herself doing, and not at all like the way that Jin held herself. Mai, instead, hugs her knees and closes her eyes and tries to remember how to breathe. 

The tears come quickly, like oceans that break over and through dams, crashing onto shores that do not know water. They come like a thunderstorm, each shaking breath punctuated by lighting, each coughing cry threatened only by thunder. Her heart is beating too fast, like maybe she’s having a heart attack, and— wouldn’t that be ironic? To be a visitor in the stairway of a hospital and to have a heart attack? 

Half of Mai wonders if she would ever be found here. Logically, she knows that someone would eventually walk up or down the staircase and find her, heart given out and tears running down her neck. But she still wonders— she doesn’t think that Azula nor Jin would come looking for her. Mai had burned those bridges well enough. The more bridges she burns, the more Mai lashes out with whiplike words and burning eyes, the less in control she feels. The faster the world spins. The more she wishes she were holding someone’s hand. 

She wanted, if she could have nothing else in the world, to hold Ty Lee’s hand and feel her pulse through her palm. If the world could grant her one wish, it would be that Ty Lee was okay. That she would heal, and she would smile at Mai again the way she used to. 

Mai takes a deep breath, looking out at the wall in front of her. It’s a plain white wall, scratched at waist level by whatever metal things scrape past these halls. She leans back, dropping her legs out to the next stair under her. She closes her eyes, as if searching for some force, some god to beg forgiveness from. She doesn’t know what she did, but something must have happened in another life for so many things to go wrong. 

She remembers what Ty Lee had said, in what felt like an eternity ago. Accidents happen in threes. Mai is half beginning to believe it. Zuko and Ty Lee and Natusko. At least they’ve reached three. Mai doesn’t know what would be worse than this. She doesn’t think that anything would. This, in this exact moment of non-breath and guilt and tears, is the worst she’s capable of feeling. 

“You love her.” 

Mai stiffens, back suddenly straight and head facing forward. Azula stands behind her, and Mai is all too aware of it when she steps forward to stand closer. 

“In love?” Azula asks. It’s only the timing that makes it a question. Mai stays silent. “In love, then.” 

Mai, still silent, bites down on the inside of her cheek, holding her breath. She doesn’t want to have this conversation, not with Azula. Not with anyone. It’s barely a conversation that’s had with herself or with Ty Lee. 

Azula doesn’t care. She moves forward again, this time sitting down on the stairs next to Mai. She’s perfectly still, has perfect posture, and Mai finds herself mimicking it as Azula stays there. She breathes again, and wonders if that was Azula’s intention or if that was just a coincidence. 

“Love…” Azula says. It’s hard, steel, never dreamy. Mai can’t imagine Azula as dreamy, or anywhere near in love. “It’s dangerous, Mai.” 

Mai swallows. She can recognize a warning when she hears one. “I’m careful.” 

“Are you?” Azula asks. She looks at Mai out of the corner of her eyes, and Mai can feel her cheeks burning. It’s emotion, and it’s obvious, and she hates it. “Have you ever been careful, when it comes to her?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mai lies. She’s not careful, when it comes to Ty Lee. She’s shaky and in love and obvious. She burns and her heart twists and she can’t look away. She’s careful with her love, careful with her heart, but careless when it comes to falling for her. 

Azula sighs, leaning back on her wrists. “Careful is a strange word.” 

“It is.” 

“I’m careful,” Azula says. She doesn’t say it confidently, but that it’s a fact. “I don’t fall in love.” 

Mai licks her lips, trying to fix her drying throat. Next to her, she can hear Azula’s even breaths. Mai doesn’t know if there’s any salvaging this conversation, any way to take back the admission she never quite made, but that Azula heard anyway. Maybe there was no way. Maybe this was the world she lived in now— giving Azula that power over her, letting Azula into some section of her heart that was supposed to be secret. 

That was the thing about secrets— they never quite stayed that way. Azula knew people, knew how to find the little things. All that Mai had left to hold to her heart was that Ty Lee loved her back. 

“Anyways,” Azula says, standing up. She brushes the dust off of the backs of her legs and smiles at Mai. That smile is as much of a warning as her words. “I just want you to be careful. Wouldn’t want you to get distracted.” 

It’s so reminiscent of the first time that Mai met Ty Lee that she can’t help but shiver. It’s as if Azula has known this entire time, since before Mai herself had known. It hurts. Like Azula knew something of the world that Mai could never grasp, no matter how hard she tried. Like her and Ty Lee had been something Azula choreographed into her own game, partnering them together until they became something more. As if Azula had been waiting for this. 

Mai, suddenly unsure how much of her heart was her own, stands up, looking Azula in the eye. “I don’t get distracted.” 

“Which is why I’m sure your act will be as good as ever,” Azula tells her. She nods, crossing her wrists behind her back, as if she were a school girl crossing her fingers in order to break a promise. “Even without Natsuko.” 

Mai had forgotten about that. She doesn’t have a partner anymore, and without a partner, Mai had no show. People didn’t pay to see her throw knives as a target, they paid for the thrill of nearly hitting someone. Mai could no longer provide that— and Azula knew it. And when Azula knows something, she uses it.


	15. Chapter 15

Mai should probably apologize. When she and Azula go back to the waiting room, Jin is sitting alone in the corner, clearly upset. Her normally beautiful smile has turned into something heartbreaking. Jin is the kind of person Mai would describe as _earnest._ She wants what’s best for the people around her, and Mai knows that she would never wish harm upon anyone else. But Mai also isn’t the kind of person who knows how to apologize. 

Jin stands up when the two of them approach, arms crossed over her chest protectively. “Everything okay?” 

Azula just nods stiffly, not bothering to give Mai another glance, as if their conversation had meant nothing to her, though the world to Mai. Mai mimics her straight nod, then goes to the chairs to sit down and ignore the both of them. 

Jin, caught in the middle, just follows her to the chairs. She sits with perfect posture now, rather than the slumped over ball she had been curled into earlier. Now, she holds herself as if she’s waiting for judgement. Mai glances over, swallowing. 

“Jin,” Mai murmurs, half hoping that the other girl won’t hear her, and begging that Azula won’t either. 

Jin, despite Mai’s hopes, looks over. “Yeah?” 

“I—” Mai hesitates. She’s not sure what’s supposed to come next in an apology, or what’s supposed to happen afterwards. It’s not something she’s bothered to do before, but there’s a bubble of guilt that’s building up in her throat when she looks at Jin and thinks about how much it isn’t her fault. 

Jin tilts her head, clearly waiting, and Mai chokes out her apology. “I’m… sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. About this being your fault.” 

Jin nods, but it’s clearly hesitant, as if she doesn’t believe what Mai is saying. For a moment, Mai wonders if her apology really sounded that ingenuine, but then she realizes that Jin must be blaming herself for this incident as much as Mai wants to blame her. Jin was the one who failed to catch Ty Lee, and Mai figures that she must feel a kind of guilt that Mai can’t imagine at that moment. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Mai says quietly. It’s true, but it’s bitter. “Accidents happen. It’s part of the business.” 

Jin shakes her head. “Not to us. Not to Ty Lee.” 

Mai looks away at that; there’s not much of an argument there. All she knows how to do now is nod and smile, the way every actor is taught to do when uncomfortable. She takes a deep breath, wondering what it would feel like to be Ty Lee at that moment— somewhere in the maze of a hospital, barely breathing, having fallen for the first time in her history of performance. 

She doesn’t know if she wants to imagine it, but she can’t help but picture Ty Lee in a hospital bed, bones being stitched back together by people in masks. She can’t help but picture her unconscious, eyes closed, lost somewhere that she might never return from. 

Mai shakes her head, trying to rid herself of that image, but it doesn’t fully go. Mai doesn’t know if it ever will. She turns to Jin, and to Azula on the other side of her. “She’s going to be fine.” It comes out as more of a question that anything. 

Azula looks at her, her eyes a new shade of frozen. “Maybe.” 

“She will be,” Jin says, leagues more positive than Azula had been. 

Jin has relaxed her posture just slightly, enough for her to lean back in her chair with half-shut eyes. It’s then that Mai realizes how late it is— or rather, how early in the morning it's getting to be. They’d been at the hospital for hours, and it had already been late when Ty Lee was brought in. Still, though, there had been no news. She’s not sure what would be more agonizing, though, to hear nothing or to hear bad news. 

Mai nods, then turns away from them, looking to the other side of the room, where a grand window runs from floor to ceiling. Nighttime is beginning to fade away, the sunlight beginning to break through the horizon and light up the skin some thin, pale shade of blue. The window overlooks the city, where Mai can see bedroom lights beginning to be turned on and the streetlights change color. 

From the waiting room, Mai can pick out her favorite landmarks— the road which turns onto the highway and towards the carnival, the turn off of 49th that will get her to her own apartment, the park where she used to walk dogs in for cheap pay, her favorite coffee shop, one that she was planning on taking Ty Lee to eventually. 

But still, she’s distant from those places; the glass of the window only cuts her off more from that world. It’s one of those wet mornings, when the dew sticks to glass even when it hadn’t appeared to have rained. It puts a slight fog over the window, as if Mai is watching the city through a film of rain rather than through a glass. 

She’s in the waiting room of a hospital while the rest of the city wakes up for their work day. Mai is sitting, waiting patiently for news of her— best friend? Girlfriend? Mai didn’t know what, not yet, and that was another great tragedy of this moment— while the rest of the city eats breakfast. Traffic is starting to pick up, and Mai wonders how long it takes normal people to get to and from work. 

She wonders if all of them make pit stops at the hospital to visit the other employees who have gotten hurt on the job. She wonders what it would feel like to be safe while at work: no risk of stabbing or burning or falling, no risk of major injury. Just normal, daily work. Thinking about it, Mai almost wants to leave the circus. She almost wants to find a job without risk of death, without knowing that her friends could get hurt at any moment. She almost wants to be free in a way that she hasn’t been in years. 

It’s then, though, that the doctor comes into the waiting room with news of Ty Lee, and Mai gets thrust back into the world of the carnival. 

The doctor talks with the kind of voice that reminds Mai of chalk on a chalkboard. It’s grating, even if it weren’t for what he’s saying— a list of injuries, a list of problems, the fact that she’s still breathing is a miracle. Mai can’t swallow the words right, and next to her, she can see that Jin and Azula are just as shaken up. 

The doctor, giving in to Azula’s several requests, agrees to let them see her, and brings them down a long hallway. Mai feels a bit like she’s going down some kind of walk of shame, one that warps and twists around her with every step. If she were to stop moving, she might collapse and never get back up. 

The doctor stops outside her room, opening the door and ushering them in. The three of them step in with bated breath, Mai twisting at the fabric of her sleeves. There’s nothing quite like a hospital to make a person anxious, nothing quite like the sight she enters into. 

The bruises have formed around Ty Lee’s temple, bleeding around and over her left eye, and it looks like every limb is covered in bandages and casts. Upon a closer look, it’s just her legs and left arm, where she had taken the brunt of the fall. Her right side is bruised and weak, but not shattered in the way that her other side is. 

Shattered, the doctor had said. That isn’t the kind of word that heals, Mai knows. That isn’t the kind of glass that gets put back together. But then again, Ty Lee has never been glass. 

Ty Lee opens her eyes when the three of them approach, feet seemingly loud against the tiled floors. She tries for a smile, but grimaces as the bone of her jaw starts to shift too far. It’s a tragic kind of sight, and Mai wants to tear her eyes away, but can’t bring herself to move away. Instead, she approaches the hospital bed, arms wrapped around her chest. 

“Hey,” Mai whispers, swallowing down all of the other things she wants to say. “How’re you feeling? 

It’s a stupid question, and she knows it as soon as she says it. But she doesn’t know what else there is to say. She doesn’t know if there’s any amount of words that can fix this. She’s never had the right words for anything, much less this kind of thing. 

Ty Lee swallows, but it looks like it hurts. There’s a thick collar around her neck impeding her movement, and Mai’s eyes run over her face again, trying not to cry herself. 

“I’ve been better,” Ty Lee says, voice hoarse. It’s such a horrible break against the normal bright edge she has to her voice. “As you can see.” 

Mai nods, trying for a smile, but it doesn’t come out right. It’s more of a grimace than anything, and Mai can see that it’s not helping Ty Lee feel better at all. “You fell pretty far.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Ty Lee agrees. She closes her eyes, sighing. She’s clearly exhausted, but Mai doesn’t want to leave her alone. “Is Jin here?” 

Jin nods, then realizes Ty Lee can’t see her. “I’m here.” 

“How’re you doing?” Ty Lee asks, because of course she does. Of course she’s not angry. Jin is one of her best friends, and Ty Lee is nothing if not loyal. 

Jin shrugs, stepping over to Ty Lee. She holds her hand over Ty Lee’s hand, as if waiting for permission to touch that never comes. That wrist is the place she was supposed to catch Ty Lee, the wrist she had failed to touch once before. “I’m…” she can’t seem to find the words to say it, to say how intensely sorry she is. 

Ty Lee opens her eyes. “It’s not your fault. I know you’re blaming yourself.” 

“It is my fault,” Jin mutters, stepping back and crossing her arms around her chest again. To Mai’s surprise, Azula moves over to her, resting her hand at the hollow of Jin’s spine, some kind of comfort that Mai didn’t understand. 

Ty Lee shakes her head, trying to keep the movement as big as possible without giving away how much pain she was in. “Accidents happen. The doctors say that I’ll be okay.” 

“You’re still hurt now,” Jin tells her. She can’t meet Ty Lee’s eyes. “You’re still in pain.” 

Mai can’t help but agree with her, but after everything she’s already said, she doesn’t think she should do any more. She’s said enough to make Jin sorry. Maybe too much. 

“I’m as good as ever,” Ty Lee says, voice dry. “I’m just tired.” 

“We can let you sleep now,” Azula says. It’s the first thing she’s said since they entered the hospital room, and Mai frowns. She would have thought Azula would have a thousand things to say, whether they were to Jin or to Ty Lee. But Azula’s been quiet, eyes flickering around the room, between Ty Lee and Mai. 

Ty Lee closes her eyes. “Come back again, though. I hate hospitals.” 

“We’ll be back,” Jin promises. She takes a breath. “I’m sorry, Ty Lee. I’m so sorry.” 

“You don’t have to be,” Ty Lee tells her. She looks over, smiling. This one looks like it hurts just a little bit less, but maybe Ty Lee is just getting better at masking the pain. “I’ll see you again soon, okay? I’ll be more awake after tonight.” 

Jin nods. “We’ll see tomorrow, okay?” 

“Okay,” Ty Lee agrees. Mai is about to turn away, following Azula and Jin out of the room, but Ty Lee stops her. “Mai.” 

Mai turns, heart skipping a beat. She doesn’t know what she wants Ty Lee to say, she doesn’t know what she wants to hear, but she wants to know what Ty Lee is going to say. “Yeah?” 

“I—” Ty Lee bites her lip, as if she isn’t bruised enough. “I’m allowed to have one person stay with me. The armchair looks soft, if you’d like.” 

Mai stares at her for a moment, watching the blush run over Ty Lee’s cheeks. “Are you asking me to spend the night here?”

“Yeah,” Ty Lee murmurs. 

She doesn’t take her eyes away from Mai, and her gaze is so intense, so honest, so vulnerable, that Mai doesn’t think twice about her answer. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll stay.”


	16. Chapter 16

Ty Lee falls asleep almost immediately. She’s exhausted and in pain, and Mai is pretty sure that the doctors gave her something to help her sleep in the first place. Mai had dragged the armchair closer to Ty Lee so that they could look at each other from where they slept. She had barely curled up in the chair before Ty Lee was asleep, her deep, even breaths punctuating Mai’s anxiety. 

Mai watches her while she sleeps, feeling only slightly guilty about it. Ty Lee had asked her to stay, and Mai wasn’t quite sure what that meant. She’d decided that it was an intimate kind of act to sit next to someone while they’re in the hospital, but she wasn’t sure that Ty Lee thought the same thing. All she knew was that Ty Lee was broken but breathing, and Mai was sitting with her. 

Ty Lee shifts slightly in her sleep, but doesn’t move all of the way. Mai hopes she’s not in too much pain while she sleeps, but realistically, she figures that she’s in a lot of pain. She had fallen 40 feet, high enough that most people would have died. The impact would have killed them. Even though Ty Lee was alive, there was still risk of a traumatic brain injury, or some other kind of complication that no one was prepared to deal with. 

Mai leans back against the arm of the chair, her legs thrown over the other arm. It’s a soft chair, and more comfortable than she had expected. She curls up then, pulling her knees to her chest with the side of her head resting against the back of the chair. It’s enough to make her sleep, despite the slight chill of the hospital and the draft coming through the window. 

She doesn’t want to sleep, afraid of what she might dream. The light time she had fallen asleep like this— having visited the hospital and cried until her cheeks were stained with eyeliner— she had dreamt about Ty Lee. She had dreamt about running out of time. 

Looking back on it, Mai half wondered if her subconscious could tell the future. Maybe her subconscious knew everything that was going to come, all of the pain and tears and broken bones. Maybe her dreams were prophecies. In that case, Mai didn’t want to sleep. 

Despite herself, though, she falls asleep to the tune of a heart monitor, beeping steadily through the night. She doesn’t dream, and she’s thankful for it. It’s not a restful sleep, and she wakes up again feeling just as tired as she had when she had fallen asleep.

She wakes up to see Ty Lee watching her with half lidded eyes. She smiles when Mai meets her eyes, yawning. 

“Morning,” Ty Lee murmurs. She opens her eyes farther, then, mimicking Mai’s yawn. “Sleep well?” 

“Yeah,” Mai lies. It’s not worth it to tell Ty Lee that her back hurts, not when Ty Lee was the one in the hospital bed. “Dreamless.” 

Ty Lee smiles at that. It’s a pained smile, and Mai wonders how worth it Ty Lee thought it was to smile at her, and why she thought that. “You talk in your sleep, you know.” 

Mai frowns. “I do?” 

“Yeah,” Ty Lee tells her, yawning again. She makes an aborted motion with her right hand, then winces and rests it back on the bed again. 

“Did I wake you up?” 

“Nah.” Ty Lee turns her head forwards again, staring at the opposite wall. There’s a TV there, and a second chair to sit in. It’s not a particularly interesting room. “I just didn’t sleep well.” 

Mai nods. She can guess why. “Did I say anything interesting last night?” 

“Not really,” Ty Lee says. “It was mostly nonsense.” 

“Oh?” 

Ty Lee smiles again, looking over at Mai. “There was a lot of general mumbling and sighing. It was very fitting for you.” 

“Thanks,” Mai says, actually laughing at that. It’s breathy and quiet and not quite happy, but the fact that Ty Lee can make her smile despite the moment is a credit to her many talents. 

“Anytime,” Ty Lee said. She goes quiet, and closes her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. In the hospital light, the light seemed to flicker into something darker, something deeper. “You said my name a few times.” 

Mai can feel her cheeks heat up at that, and she drops her chin slightly, looking anywhere but Ty Lee. She didn’t remember any dreams, but clearly her subconscious had had something on her mind. “I wouldn’t know why.” 

Ty Lee hums a response, as if she doesn’t believe Mai. If she could move better, mai would guess that she would be chuckling. “I know why.” 

“Why’s that?” 

Ty Lee smiles. “Because you love me.” 

There’s a heartbeat of silence. Mai’s head shoots up and she faces Ty Lee, eyes meeting and staying there for a moment. Ty Lee isn’t joking, has never been joking about any of this. She smiles. She was never able to take her makeup off from the performance the night before, and there’s a deep pink rubbed over her cracked lips, and the bruises form under a sheen of pink eyeshadow and glittering highlights. She’s basking in the hospital light and she’s telling Mai something they’ve both known for years, even if they’ve never said it. 

“Yeah,” Mai says. It’s not a confession, but a truth. “I do. And you love me.” 

“Yeah,” Ty Lee says. Her smile hasn’t faded once. “I do.” 

Mai smiles at that. It’s the kind of smile that comes easy, because it’s for Ty Lee. The kind of smile that no one else gets to see. It’s just for the two of them. Something secret that they can share. “I do kind of wish we weren’t saying this in a hospital.” 

Ty Lee laughs, or at least tries to. It turns into a wheezing cough, and Mai is reminded again how far she had fallen, and how hard she had hit the ground. 

“Water,” Mai says, standing up. There’s a cup from last night sitting at a table across the room, and Mai goes to grab it and bring it to Ty Lee. She drinks it greedily, sighing when she finishes. “Good?” 

Ty Lee nods, taking another long breath. It must be hard to breathe with the next brace, Mai thinks, and it must hurt every time she swallows. A pang of pity shoots through her heart, just for a half second before she decides that pity is the last thing that Ty Lee would want. 

“I can grab more,” Mai says, nodding at Ty Lee. “I’ll be right back.” 

Her hair has fallen away from the buns and lies in knots around her shoulders, and her clothes are wrinkled with sleep, but Mai decides she doesn’t care as she steps out into the hallways. She knows she looks gross, and she feels just as gross, but there are other priorities, one of them being water for Ty Lee. 

She doesn’t actually know where she’s going, she just knows that she’s walking. There’s got to be a water cooler of some kind nearby, and if not, there must be a nurse or someone she can ask. She turns down another hallway, counting the turns she makes so she can eventually get back to Ty Lee’s room. 

It’s not until the hallways get to be familiar that Mai decides she’s truly lost— somehow, she made her way from Ty Lee’s room to the wing of the hospital that Zuko is staying in. Now that she’s there, she might as well commit to it. 

Turning down another hallway, Mai counts the numbers of the rooms until she can find the one that Zuko is in. She knocks on the door, bracing herself. She doesn’t know what kind of mood Zuko will be in at that moment— it generally varies from incredibly happy to see her to just angry and in pain. Mai can’t fault him for either of those things. 

“Come in!” someone calls out, and the voice isn’t familiar, but Mai enters anyways. 

Except it’s not Zuko who she sees on the bed. It’s someone else, some stranger with a dark burn over his arm that looks more painful than Mai can imagine. He’s smiling when she walks in, but his smile fades when she walks in. 

“Who are you?” 

“I—” Mai stops. “I must have the wrong room.” 

“Yeah,” the man says, his words suddenly biting and angry. He had been expecting someone he cared about, and he ended up with Mai. 

Mai backs out of the room, nodding towards him, the paper cup in her hand bending in her fist. “Sorry about that.” 

She closes the door behind her, swallowing down the embarrassment. She had been so sure that this was the room. But glancing at the number next to the door, she was still certain. She has a good memory, and this is where Zuko is supposed to be— unless he had left without letting her know. 

There’s a nurse, a few doors down, and Mai speedwalks towards her. Zuko had to be okay. Azula would have let her know if he… 

“The guy who was in that room,” Mai says in a rush, the nurse having barely turned towards her yet. 

The nurse frowns. “Yeah?” 

“Where is he?” 

“I don’t think I’m allowed to give you that information,” the nurse says, slow, as if she’s considering doing it anyways. “It’s just my third day.” 

Mai smiles at her, a cut and slip of the lips, convincing as she can make it. “I think it would be okay.” 

“Fine,” the nurse says, sighing. “He was discharged last night, and his uncle— I think it was— came to pick him up. He left all his belongings behind, I had to throw them away. Waste of a good phone, if you ask me.” 

Mai nods, turning that information over in her mind. Zuko had gone, and left behind any way he could have communicated with her. His uncle, at least, was with him, and as far as Mai knows, Uncle Iroh is a good person. Zuko is safe then, even if he’s left her behind. He’s left the fire in the circus and found a different life. Mai takes a deep breath, nodding to the nurse in a thank you, and starts going back to Ty Lee. Zuko is okay. Gone, but okay. He left her behind, but she still has to be happy for him. She is happy for him. 

Shaking off the unwanted feeling of betrayal, Mai turns back down the hallway towards Ty Lee’s room. Somewhere along the way, she finds a nurse who helps her get water. It’s easy from there on; retracing her steps back through the hallways. They all look the same, the only differences being the numbers on the room and the gurneys standing in different places along the side walls. 

Mai reaches Ty Lee’s room with the water as she’s falling asleep again. But she wakes up again as Mai enters, as if she had been dozing simply to pass the time until Mai got back. The thought makes something warm blossom in Mai’s chest. 

“That felt longer than it should have,” Ty Lee says. Not a complaint, Mai can tell, but something teasing. Ty Lee is sitting in a hospital bed, broken at every edge, and she still finds the room to tease Mai. 

Mai shrugs, handing her the cup of water and sitting back in the armchair. “I got a little bit lost.” 

She doesn’t mention Zuko, and she’s not quite sure why. Maybe she just doesn’t want to worry her about it, especially when it’s probably nothing. There was no point in bringing it up— there was enough on Ty Lee’s mind already, Mai guessed.

“Is there a show tonight?” Ty Lee asks, handing Mai the water again. Her lips are glistening as she speaks. 

Mai nods. “Yeah. I don’t know what I’m expected to do, though. Not with Natsuko.” 

“That’s three acts down,” Ty Lee muses, turning away from Mai to stare at the ceiling. 

“Three?” 

Ty Lee hums something non-committal. Then she raises her right hand, the one with the IV at the crease of her elbow. “You without Natsuko, the fire dancers without Zuko, and me without Jin.” 

Mai takes a breath. Ty Lee was right. She wouldn’t ever admit it, but she was beginning to believe in Ty Lee’s superstitions. Accidents come in threes. She didn’t know if Natsuko counted as an accident, especially since it had been something planned, something that was done on purpose, but she almost wanted it to count. If it didn’t count, there was something worse, and Mai didn’t know what would be worse. 

Again, her mind drifts back to Jin and her act. She hadn’t come to visit Ty Lee yet, and Mai wasn’t sure what she was doing, but Mai didn’t think she could be feeling any kind of good. Accidents happen, people get hurt, people die, that was a part of the business— but that didn’t make any of it easier. Knowing that it was a possibility didn’t make it any easier when it happened. 

“I’m going to have to go back to my place and then to work,” Mai says softly. She places the cup of water on the table again, looking over at Ty Lee. “You’ll be okay alone?” 

Ty Lee smiles at her, and it seems honest, but Mai doesn’t think Ty Lee has the physical ability to do anything else at the moment. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.” 

“I always worry,” Mai tells her, raising an eyebrow. “I’ll come back after the show.” 

Ty Lee nods. “Sounds good. I’ll see you then. Don’t be late.” 

“Never am,” Mai tells her, biting her bottom lip. She’s beginning to think “never” is kind of a cursed word. But still, she says it as she leaves the room, closing the door behind her.


	17. Chapter 17

Mai doesn’t look back when she leaves the hospital. She doesn’t look back when she gets a taxi back to her apartment. She doesn’t look back when she showers and changes. She doesn’t look back when she gets to the carnival grounds. She doesn’t look back when Azula calls her into a meeting. She doesn’t think about Zuko, and she most definitely does not think about Ty Lee. 

It hurts too much. 

Instead, she drops her stuff off at the backstage trailer where she usually gets ready and goes to find Azula. It doesn’t take long— Azula is waiting for her at one of the picnic tables in the back. It’s not the grandest of places to have a meeting, but they work in a circus and aren’t exactly the most elite of people. Mai sits down across from her, folding her hands on the top of the table, waiting for Azula to start talking. 

“We’re waiting for Jin,” Azula says, bored. She doesn’t want to be doing this. There are better things for her to deal with, Mai guesses, than dealing with the two of them. The only commonalities between Mai and Jin are (a) Ty Lee, and (b) the fact that neither of them have an act anymore. 

Mai and Azula only sit in silence until Jin joins them. There’s something between Mai and Azula that hadn’t been there before, something that Mai isn’t sure she likes. It’s a new barrier, and all of the walls that the two of them had let down around each other were suddenly up again. It’s a kind of tension that Mai is almost afraid of. Not necessarily because of the tension itself, but because of what Azula might do because of it. 

She’s never been quite sure what she is to Azula— a friend? A peer? An employee? A subordinate? There are options that Mai has never really taken up, words that don’t fit quite right and never have. But now they fit even less. Azula has stepped away, closed herself off, cut off any attachment that might have been there before. 

Mai isn’t sure why that might be, but she has guesses. If anything, it’s Ty Lee. It’s that Mai might choose someone over Azula, the potential for betrayal. Mai half wishes that she could tell Azula that she won’t betray her, but another part of her knows that’s a lie. Another part of her holds this power, holds this knife and keeps it cold inside her fist. 

When Jin finally arrives, she sits down next to Mai slowly and silently. She’s clearly spent the night crying, her eyes red and puffy, her lips bitten to the point of cracking open. Jin doesn’t quite know what to do with her body when she sits down, shifting again and again as she tries to find a comfortable, professional opinion. She thinks she’s about to get fired, Mai guesses, and if Jin is about to be fired in front of Mai, Mai is going to be fired too. 

She’s not sure how she feels about that. She knows how she’s supposed to feel about it— sad, regretful, angry, depressed, disappointed— all of the things people are supposed to feel about losing their jobs and their livelihood. But thinking about the prospect of it, Mai doesn’t feel any of those things. She almost feels relieved. It sits in her chest like a pool of water, a river waiting to be spilled into a new world that she can discover. A new job. Somewhere that her friends don’t burn and fall and cry. 

“My father wanted me to talk to you two,” Azula says, voice hard. She’s practiced this speech over and over again, Mai can tell, and that isn’t a good sign. 

“What about?” Jin asks. 

Azula shoots her a glare, and Jin shrinks in on herself, quieting. Azula continues, both ignoring the question and answering it at the same time. “Neither of you have an act anymore, and we need to fix that.” 

“You’re not firing us?” Jin blurts out, as if she can’t help but keep talking, like she has no control over what her tongue says. 

Azula shakes her head. “No. We’re combining your acts.” 

“What?” Mai stares at Azula, frowning. She can’t imagine herself on a trapeze and she can’t imagine Jin with a knife in hand; the image is uncomfortable and altogether wrong. The way that Azula says it— combining— makes it insidious, like this combination of their acts isn’t going to be anything good. Mai can’t see how it would work. 

Azula licks her lips, hesitating. It's something she does when she’s nervous, a habit she broke years ago. “Mai will be throwing knives at Jin.” 

Jin inhales tightly, and Mai just stares at Azula. She can’t figure out what Azula is doing— what Ozai is doing. She could never understand Ozai and at this point, she doesn’t know if she wants to. The act sounds simple enough; to have Jin stand there while Mai holds the knives, but it isn’t that simple. The blocks and restraints are weighted specifically for Natsuko, and Jin is half her size. Mai and Natsuko have been training together for at least two years, for long enough that Mai knows her every movement, and Natsuko can trust every throw. Mai and Jin can’t do that. 

“I can’t do that,” Jin says, just under her breath. She knows she can’t deny Ozai’s plan, not outright, but Mai can also hear a tremor in her voice. 

“That’s a terrible idea,” Mai tells Azula, voice sharp. Azula is tapping the wooden top of the picnic table with sharp nails that Mai could swear would break through skin. Mai finds her eyes, and glares. “We can’t do that.” 

Azula shrugs. “Do you have a better idea? Because I certainly don’t.” 

“You came up with this?” Mai asks, suddenly glaring. Azula should know better— does know better. Mai has talked about this before, how this works, how not just anyone can take Natsuko’s place. When they do their audience participation, they don’t get too complicated with it. 

“No,” Azula says, somewhere between tired and angry. That, Mai thought, was a good way to describe Azula in the past few days. “It was my father’s idea. Entirely.” 

Jin nods, accepting that answer at face value. Mai isn’t going to argue that point— it’s not at all worth it— but she doesn’t believe Azula for a second. She’s a good liar, she always has been, and Mai doesn’t ever know if she’s being truly sincere, but this seems wrong. Azula is the mastermind behind half of Ozai’s plans, and that’s the smart half Mai is thinking of. 

“Look,” Azula tells them, leaning forward, elbows on the table. Mai leans back, and Azula glares. “You’re going on tonight, so you have a few hours to get ready. I suggest you start.” 

Mai looks over at Jin, who looked back. She clearly is not interested in having knives thrown at her, but Mai is even less interested in Jin throwing her knives. She looks back at Azula and sighs. There’s no arguing this point, apparently. 

“Let’s go,” Mai tells Jin, standing up from the picnic table. “I’ll show you the equipment.” 

As she says it, she wonders if Joo Dee ever checked it. She had seen Joo Dee wandering around the grounds the morning, Ozai at her side, his arms crossed behind his back and his eyes staring straight ahead, emotionless. She had been pointing things out with her pen, then scribbling things down on the clipboard. Ozai hadn’t looked happy about any of it. 

Either way, Mai figures that the show will go on. That’s what this carnival does, that was why Mai was leading Jin backstage behind the big top where her things were stored pre-show. Dragging them out, glaring at Jin until she helped, Mai sets up what her— their— act will look like. 

“Okay,” Mai says, taking a breath. “You’re going to be tied up to that thing, and I’m going to throw knives at you.” 

“Just like that?” Jin asks, staring at Mai incredulously. She glances between the block and Mai, then to the knives Mai has placed on a small table next to her. “For how long?” 

Mai shrugs. “I don’t know. I’ve never timed it.” 

“Okay,” Jin says, nice and slow. “How many knives?” 

Mai looks down to the table. There are forty, but she doesn’t usually use all of them. “Ten per section.” 

“Right.” Jin swallows, again looking over at Mai as if she would rather be literally anywhere else. She supposed that that was a good assessment. Mai too, would rather be anywhere else. More specifically, she’d like to be with Ty Lee. 

Her mind begins drifting away, even as Jin starts walking over to the knife block. She wonders how Ty Lee was doing, what she’s doing now that she’s in the hospital alone. There are always complications that can come with surgeries and every other injury that Ty Lee sustained, and Mai can’t help but wonder if she’s been rushed back into the ICU and bleeding out and— that’s not realistic, Mai tells herself, reeling her thoughts back in check. 

Jin is standing at the knife block, not sure what she wants to do. She could stand there, let Mai throw knives at her. She could run, walk away. There are places for her to go. 

“Okay,” Jin says, taking a deep breath. “I just stand here and look pretty?” 

Mai laughs quietly, just to herself. “It’s harder than it looks. You have to trust me, okay?” 

“Right,” Jin tells her. “I can do that.” 

Mai nods, walking over to the block. She puts her hands on Jin’s shoulders, moving her over to the right position. She’s shorter than Natsuko was, and thinner, but she holds her shoulders up at a higher angle. Mai will just have to adjust for that. 

“I’m going to practice a few times before I put the blindfold on, okay?” Mai asks, walking back over to the table with the knives.

“Wait, blindfold?” 

Mai turns back to her, a knife already in hand. She shifts it between her fingers, getting a sense of the weight. She’s been throwing this model for years, but it’s still nice to get a grip before throwing them. “You have seen our show, right?” 

Jin swallows. “Yeah, but…” 

“Fine,” Mai mutters. She knows it’s a risk— Ozai and Azula are putting them into this, expecting that it will be just as much of a spectacle as usual, and that meant the blindfold and the fire and Mai wasn’t sure that Jin would agree to any of that. Louder, she calls back to Jin, “I’ll leave the blindfold off for this show.” 

Jin nods. She takes a deep breath and holds herself up straight, looking right ahead at Mai. Their eyes lock, and Jin smiles at her. The smile, though, is one of those smiles you make when you’re telling a person it’s okay that they’re about to hurt you. 

Mai pushes the knife around her fingers, playing with the blade for just another moment. Then, before Jin can say anything else, Mai throws the knife— it’s a good distance from Jin’s head, close enough to look entertaining but far enough that Jin wasn’t even near any danger— and Jin screams. She ducks her head, dropping towards the ground and away from the knife. 

It’s half a second after the scream that Jin regains her composure and stands up again. She glares at Mai, yelling back, “I wasn’t ready!” 

“Get ready!” Mai tells her, and Jin straightens her back. 

She takes a deep breath while Mai twirls the next knife around her fingers. It’s cold and sharp, familiar feelings, comforting feelings. Jin, however, feels none of that. Mai throws the next knife as Jin blinks, and it hits the block before she can scream again. She was getting better, Mai decided, and this might not be so terrible. It won’t be good, but it might not be a total disaster.

They run through that section a few more times, Mai throwing the knives and Jin just hoping for the best. Jin keeps her eyes closed every time, still flinching when she hears the thunk of blade against painted cork. But she doesn’t scream, and she doesn’t duck, and right now, that’s all that Mai can ask for. 

“Okay,” Mai says, tugging the knives out of the block and putting them back at the holsters around her wrists, thighs, waist, ankles, and ribs. “Now for the fire ring. Ready?” 

Jin stares at her. “No.” 

“Well,” Mai tells her, “you’re going to have to be. Show is in four hours and we still have a lot of knives to go through.” 

Jin curses, but they move on.


	18. Chapter 18

Okay, so the show could have gone worse. It could have gone better, of course, but it could have gone worse, and that’s what Mai is focusing on. She didn’t hit Jin at all, and Jin didn’t scream once, so she counts that as a success. It just wasn’t entertaining. She could feel the audience getting bored the longer that the act went on— none of the adrenaline that Mai usually got from performance was there. She could tell that Jin felt the same way. 

But it was over. They got through it. 

And they would have to get through it again and again and again, until there were replacements for Natsuko and Ty Lee. But it doesn’t look like those replacements are coming anytime soon— Joo Dee has been coming to the circus more and more often, inspecting things that she’s already inspected. She measures that height of the trapeze and the weights at the lines, she climbs up the tightrope walk and puts as much of herself as she can on the rope without actually being in danger, she tests the dirt for some kind of poisoning or something— at some point, Mai loses track of what she’s actually doing. It’s beginning to feel like she’s just looking for an excuse to shut them down, but she can’t quite find one. 

While they wait for her to be done, though, Mai and Jin begin to work out a routine. They keep the same act as Mai had had with Natsuko, but adjusted for Jin. Mai begins to memorize the way that Jin holds herself when she’s against the knife block— stiffly, with a tension that Natsuko didn’t have, still with the fear of getting hurt— and the slightest flinch to the left that Mai thinks Jin won’t ever really lose. Jin, eventually, agrees to the blindfold. Some time after that, she agrees to the fire around the spinning ring. Slowly, Mai can feel life coming back to her act. 

It is still her act, at the end of the day. Jin, though she’s a part of it now, misses being on the trapeze with Ty Lee. Mai can see her watching longingly at the group trapeze performance, wishing that she were the one 40 feet in the air and flying. Mai, despite her original anger at Jin, begins to feel bad for her. 

She sees that same longer, but a thousand times worse, when she visits Ty Lee. Mai has taken to sleeping the night at the hospital with Ty Lee and spending the day with her until she has to go with work. She’s practically living at the hospital, and almost never sees her own apartment. The only reason she goes back is to do laundry, and wash the outfits she changes between when at the hospital and at work. It’s not the most glamorous of lives, but it’s the way she can spend the most time with Ty Lee, now that they don’t see each other at work. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Ty Lee tells her, one night, after Mai comes in exhausted from their latest performance. “You could go live at your own house you know, and sleep in a real bed.” 

Mai shrugs. After a few days, a nurse had pointed out that the armchair folded into a bed, and since then, Mai had been able to sleep much better. “I sleep perfectly well here.” 

“That’s definitely a lie,” Ty Lee says, but she’s smiling. She’s been healing remarkably fast, Mai knows, and with fingers crossed she’ll be able to walk on her own soon enough. The neck brace is gone, and her left arm is in just a regular cast, as opposed to whatever complicated thing they had before. 

Since Ty Lee’s family is travelling with their own circus— they were somewhere in South America at the moment— Mai is the one who the doctors have been giving all the information to. Apparently Ty Lee had her listed as the one to call if something had happened to her. It’s a fact that makes Mai feel ready to burst with love, but that’s not something she’s going to tell Ty Lee. 

“Do you want me gone?” Mai asks, almost teasingly. She knows what Ty Lee’s going to say. 

“Of course not,” Ty Lee says, exactly as Mai had expected. “But I do want you to sleep.” 

Mai yawns, which doesn’t help her point, but they both pretend not to notice. “I do sleep. It’s just that work is exhausting.” 

“Tell me about it?” Ty Lee asks, sighing. 

She’s sitting up in the hospital bed her leg propped up on a pile of blankets, and she’s aching to get back in the air— whether it was training, or aerial silks, or a group performance, or a hoop, or the trapeze, or with Jin, didn’t matter to her, not then. What mattered to her was getting up and flying again. She was like a newly-flightless bird, and Mai could only imagine how awful it felt. 

“The performance went well,” Mai says, sitting on the arm of the armchair, her feet on the seat part of the chair. It was something that Ty Lee made fun of her for, but Mai likes being able to see Ty Lee without having to look upwards from the chair to Ty Lee’s face. This is the easier way to look in her eyes, and Ty Lee has such beautiful eyes. 

“Jin is doing okay?” Ty Lee asks. She had been more worried about Jin than Mai had, after finding out about Ozai’s plan to force Jin into Mai’s act. Neither of them said it, but they were both thankful that Ozai hadn’t forced Mai onto the trapeze. That would have gone much worse. “I know she was nervous about the spinning fire thing.” 

Mai shrugs, rubbing her hands against her thighs to warm herself up. “She did okay. Didn’t flinch, didn’t scream, and that’s the most that I can ask for.” 

“And you didn’t hurt her.” 

Mai rolls her eyes. “Have some faith.” 

“I do,” Ty Lee tells her, “but I just had to check. I haven’t seen her in a while.” 

“I’m sure she’ll visit you soon,” Mai says, but she doesn’t know if it was true. 

There had been one too many times that Mai had caught Jin staring at her hands as if they were covered in blood; or flexing her fists as if trying to see if there was something wrong with them. Whenever she had free time, Jin was on the trapeze, doing the same move again and again, dropping an invisible partner forty feet down. The guilt, Mai could tell, was getting to Jin. She didn’t know if Jin would ever really be able to face Ty Lee, not in the same way that she had before. 

“Right,” Ty Lee says doubtfully. Mai wonders if she’s put together the same message that she has: Jin is never going to forgive herself, and thus will never be able to be with Ty Lee again. 

“The trapeze artists were beautiful tonight,” Mai tells her, shifting the topic. 

Ty Lee smiles at her. It’s a pained smile, but it’s wistful, too. It hurts to hear about it, but it hurts to pretend that they don’t exist. If Ty Lee could have one thing in the world, it would be to be on the trapeze again, Mai knows, but it’s the one thing that Mai can’t give her. When she describes the trapeze artists’ nightly show, she can see some part of Ty Lee light up, living vicariously through the stories Mai paints for her. 

“Like birds,” Mai tells her. “They did that move you like so much— the one where they spin their head over heels and then catch their wrists at the other side. You know the one?” 

Ty Lee sighs. “I know.” 

“They changed the act slightly,” Mai continues, “instead of doing the thing where they toss each other to the side, they go up.” 

“I wish I could see it,” Ty Lee murmurs. She looks up at Mai, her eyes suddenly hopeful. “You could take me to see them. Just one night out. I’m allowed that.” 

“I don’t think you are,” Mai says gently. “You’re going to have to wait until you’re at least a little bit better.” 

Ty Lee turns away. She takes a deep breath, squeezing her eyes shut. Her right hand is in a fist, but her left thumb can’t turn her hand into a fist. All she can do is take a shaky breath and make puppy dog eyes at Mai. “I’m getting back on the trapeze. I’m going to.” 

“You’re going to,” Mai agrees, trying for a smile. “I know it.” 

Ty Lee nods, taking another long, deep breath that Mai finds herself mimicking until she yawns. Ty Lee sees it, and smiles. “We should sleep now.” 

“Yeah,” Mai murmurs. “We should.” 

Ty Lee smiles at her, waving her right hand towards Mai, until Mai stands up and goes over to her. Ty Lee tangles her hand in the fabric at Mai’s shoulder and pulls her closer. They kiss, and Mai gets that same rush of happiness that she gets every time they kiss. It’s a river, a landslide, of something beautiful. The same thing that sunlight is made of, burning over her lips. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Ty Lee whispers into Mai’s lips. She kisses her again, one last time, and then one more last time. “Goodnight, Mai.”


	19. Chapter 19

Physical therapy is… hard. That’s the best word for it. Hard. 

Ty Lee, who was an acrobat and depended on her ability to run and walk and fly, hates it. She hates having to go to the room off of the main gym in their local exercise center; Mai has to all but drag her there. Progress is slow, too slow for Ty Lee’s taste. It goes and it goes and it hurts and it feels like nothing is happening. 

“Is it even worth it?” Ty Lee asks, leaning back in her wheelchair and closing her eyes. Mai pushes her slowly across the parking lot, having just completed one of her sessions. It had hurt more than usual, and Ty Lee had been pushed to tears, and she still couldn’t walk. “I’m never going to be the same.” 

Mai doesn’t really have a response to that. The doctors have all been very clear that, while she’ll heal, it’s likely that she won’t ever be able to get back to the carnival. She isn’t going to be the same and they both know it, it’s just that neither of them have accepted it yet.

Mai isn’t sure what Ty Lee will do without having the carnival at her side, without holding it within her. She isn’t sure what she herself will do without having Ty Lee working with her. She keeps trying to think of some way, some miracle she can pull, so that all of this is magically fixed and Ty Lee can be healed, but between the broken bones and the metal rods now in her calves and the nerve damage, she can’t come up with anything. 

“It’s worth it,” Mai says, trying to sound confident. “Even if you’re not the same, you’ll be… better.” 

“Right,” Ty Lee says miserably. 

So there are weeks when things go well, and there are weeks when everything seems to be coming out of alignment. Sometimes Ty Lee will hold the physical therapist in one hand and Mai with her other and take a few steps; they’re agonizing, but they’re there. Sometimes she’ll be able to walk on her own. 

Other days, Ty Lee listens to Mai tell stories about what the trapeze artists are doing in the show now, and she’ll cry silently into Mai’s shoulder. She’s lost something that Mai can’t replace. It’s not something that Mai can fix, no matter how much physical therapy Mai goes to with her. She’s lost a part of herself that Mai can’t give back to her. So, instead, she holds Ty Lee and lets her cry and kisses the spot at her temple that always makes her smile, and she pretends that it doesn’t hurt. 

It’s weeks and weeks later that Ty Lee can walk on her own without supervision. It’s shaky, but she can do it. It makes her cry, the first time. Her physical therapist steps back and tells Mai to let go of her hand. It takes one glance at Ty Lee, eager and grinning, for Mai to let go. She steps away, and she watches while Ty Lee takes her first steps, for the final time. 

It’s one step forward, slow, hesitant, and then another, then again. It’s slow, her arms out for balance as if on a tightrope. She walks shakily, but she walks all the same. 

She’s grinning as she does it, and so much of the light that had been lost in her smile was back. Mai can’t help but smile too, watching Ty Lee keep her balance as she does a slow loop around the room. Her wheelchair is at the doorway, but for the moment, Ty Lee couldn’t care less. 

Progress seems to get faster after that; Ty Lee can walk on her own more often, between the hip and back exercises. Her physical therapist tells her to go on a daily walk around her block, and Mai goes with her to make sure she doesn’t push herself too hard. 

“I won’t,” Ty Lee promises, every time. 

“You will,” Mai reminds her. 

Because, yeah, it’s every time that Ty Lee begs to go farther and faster— one more block, or one more staircase, or we can run— 

She begs, Mai thinks, because she already knows the answer. 

It’s a little bit self-destructive, a little bit torturous, but Ty Lee asks and Mai says no, and that’s the dance they do for weeks. But every time, every day, every week, they do go just a little bit father. They walk a little bit faster. They wander the streets rather than walk around the black. Mai brings the cane that Ty Lee refuses to use unless there are drastic circumstances, and they keep walking.

They find, during their journeys, places to go. A café that Ty Lee swears has the best coffee she’s ever had. A restaurant that Mai decides has great noodles but terrible dumplings. A street vendor that sells the cheapest pretzels on the block, and they know this because they’ve tried all of them. 

“It’s just more fun,” Ty Lee argues, “to go to the Museum of Science rather than the Museum of Art.” 

Mai laughs. “Sure, but it’s about the _culture.”_

“Because you care about that,” Ty Lee says, rolling her eyes. 

They’re walking down the street towards the Museum of Art, because however much she complains, Ty Lee does want to do it, even if it's just because Mai does. They’re walking slowly that day, which both of them pretend not to notice, but they find themselves at the museum eventually, buying their tickets with Mai’s circus money, and then going inside. 

They exchange glances, not sure where to go. Mai glances at the pamphlet she had grabbed at the front doors, opening to a random page. “There’s an exhibit on Greek and Roman sculpture that sounds cool. Look, they have a statue of Athena.” 

Ty Lee agrees easily, and they head upwards. 

“There’s an eleva—”

“I’m fine,” Ty Lee interrupts, heading straight for the stairs and leaving Mai behind her. “I can do the stairs.” 

Mai nods, not really wanting to argue. Besides, she believes that Ty Lee can do the stairs. She’s been getting stronger, enough so that she was able to end physical therapy on the condition that she keeps doing her exercises. Which is a good thing, because between the hospital bills and physical therapy, Ty Lee is very quickly running out of money. Apparently Ozai didn’t want to pay during her sick leave, and Mai is pretty sure that circuses don’t have unions. If there were, she isn’t a part of them. 

They make their way to the exhibit, pausing only once on the second landing for Ty Lee to catch her breath. She sits down on the top steep, rubbing at her knee. Mai sits down next to her, not wanting her to be alone, and they stare out at the rest of the people wandering around the museum. 

There’s a young child running up the stairs, his mother following and rolling her eyes at the speed of his antics. She carries a baby in her arms, one that keeps tugging at her hair. Behind them, an elderly couple come up the stairs, holding hands. 

“I’m worse than the old people,” Ty Lee complains. She’s laughing enough that Mai feels okay smiling at that, but there’s still a hint of self-deprecation. 

She only allows herself to rest for a few moments before standing up again, Mai joining her in walking the rest of the way. They hold hands, because Ty Lee offered and Mai is going to give her everything she wants— especially when it’s something that Mai also wants— and make their way through the halls. They stop as they go, wandering through exhibits on Asian art, on photography of the city fifty decades ago, on British paintings, on teapots— which Ty Lee thinks is hilarious— and on portraits from the first cameras. 

In the abstract art section, Ty Lee complains that anyone could do that, and tries to rush through it, while Mai argues that that’s the point of it, anyone can do it, but anyone didn’t do it. Ty Lee doesn’t really have an argument, but she rolls her eyes anyways. Mai just laughs, squeezing her hand. They both ignore the sports photography section, but Ty Lee has fun in the 19th century fashion exhibit. Mai isn’t going to admit it, she has a reputation to keep up, but she enjoys it too. Maybe the Met Fashion Gala is a guilty pleasure of hers, just maybe. 

The whole museum is interesting, and beautiful, and Mai takes lots of photos to look back on. There are less photos of the painting, though, then there are of Ty Lee— Ty Lee smiling as she walks up the stairs; or in front of particularly boring paintings, just for the irony; or in front of the particularly interesting paintings for Ty Lee to send to her family, who were unable to come back to see her but offer they best wishes and fast healing. Ty Lee tries not to be angry about it, but Mai heard her rant when she got the voicemail. 

They find the sculpture exhibit towards the end of their walk, as they’re both starting to get tired. It’s underwhelming, Mai thinks, but Ty Lee enjoys it. They weave between statues of athletes and gods, through pottery and coins, through jewelry and mosaics. Ty Lee stands in front of the statues, trying to mimic the poses they make: one hand behind her head like one of her physical therapy exercises, one arm leaning on an invisible railing, her legs positioned like she’s about to walk, her face contorted into an attempt at being seductive. It doesn’t work, but Mai already loves her and it doesn’t matter. Ty Lee laughs, and that’s enough for Mai to fall more in love. 

It’s not long after that that Ty Lee asks to go to one of the shows. Mai probably should have expected that she would ask— it’s not like she’s been quiet about her desire to go to the carnival grounds— but she had still been putting it off until that moment. While she wants to give Ty Lee the world, she’s also heard Ty Lee cry while listening to Mai tell a story about one of the trapeze artists. She doesn’t know if it’s a good idea, if Ty Lee will come out of the tent more upset than before. She had lost so much, Mai knew. 

But still, she’s recovering. Ty Lee is so sure that she’ll be able to get back in the air with enough physical therapy, that Mai almost believes it. She’s never been optimistic, but she wants this for Ty Lee. She wants her to be happy, and being in the carnival is such an intrinsic part of who she is that Mai doesn’t know if she can picture Ty Lee without that light she brings to the carnival. It’s strange enough seeing her sitting down all of the time, as opposed to moving around at any given chance. 

So Mai takes her to the show. She worries about it for the entire day leading up to it, but she does it all the same. She’d been staying at Ty Lee’s apartment for the past few weeks, the both of them pretending that Mai wasn’t taking care of her, and that they were doing this just for fun, because they wanted to. Mai does want to live there, somehow and someway, but she hates the reason why she’s doing it. 

They manage to get themselves into the car and on their way to the grounds, no matter how much Mai procrastinates it by forgetting the keys and her work bag and her performance shoes and the pocket knife she keeps on her belt at all times. Ty Lee sighs every time she forgets something, berating her for it but not really being able to prevent it from happening. 

The drive to the grounds would have been quiet had Mai been in control, but Ty Lee keeps up a cheerful chatter as they go. It’s her turn to choose the music, and she finds something upbeat and pop-like, something the opposite of Nina Simone and completely happy. Mai drives slowly, half begging for traffic, but she’s not quite sure who she’s asking for it, and it doesn’t happen. 

It’s not until they actually get to the grounds that Ty Lee quiets. Mai pulls into the parking lot, parking in Ty Lee’s usual spot. Mai, having no car, doesn’t have a spot, and every time she goes to work she’s been using Ty Lee car. The gravel gets crushed under the wheels as she moves, and stops the car with a deep breath. 

Ty Lee looks at her, just once, before getting out of the car without a word. Mai doesn’t say anything either, just grabbing her bag from the backseat, locking the car, and following Ty Lee forwards.


	20. Chapter 20

The grounds feel different, with Ty Lee walking by her side. On one hand, time seems to have gone backwards— Ty Lee is there, and so maybe everything is okay again, maybe nothing had ever fallen apart in the first place. But then again, Ty Lee is walking so slowly and the dirt under their feet feels just a little bit harder than it usually does. Then again, Ty Lee is holding her hand, in a way that she had never done before. Mai doesn’t really know what it is that she’s feeling— a yearning for some kind of past, or basking in the feeling of Ty Lee’s hand. 

It’s strange, no matter how she looks at it. Ty Lee, though, doesn’t seem to have any such issues. Either that, or she’s hiding them incredibly well. She walks forward, her eagerness evident in every step. They wander around the carnival; weaving their way through the unopened vendors and the trailers where props and other structures lived. Mai decides she can be slightly late to meeting Jin and gathering their set pieces together. There are more important things— namely, the way Ty Lee is smiling when she looks at the big top. 

“I’m going in,” Ty Lee says, and it’s not a question. She gives Mai one last glance, still a smile, and then lets go of her hand to push open the curtain. 

It’s the same as it always is, Mai thinks, but Ty Lee hasn’t been back here in months, and Mai thinks that she would gasp like that too, if she were Ty Lee. The tent is, after all, the grandest sight in the carnival for a reason. It towers over them, the ceiling of the tent reaching far above even the trapeze structure that lives there. The black and white fabric ripples in the breeze, a draft of cold air rushing past Mai’s neck. 

It’s filled with shadows, as if the sun can’t quite reach them in this dreamland. It can’t make its way through the tarp, and it doesn’t want to. Mai and Ty Lee stand there, at the entrance to the tent and stare at the ring. Ty Lee sighs, and Mai can’t quite tell if it's a happy sigh or not. If anything, it’s wistful. 

Ty Lee walks farther into the tent, clearly aiming for the center of the ring, where her trapeze would be, if the world was right. There’s a small barrier around the ring, just a foot high, more to give the appearance of a barrier than to actually keep anyone out. Ty Lee climbs over it without any issues, stepping into the ring with the confidence of a trapeze artist, of someone with wings. 

But, at the end of the day, she’s not someone with wings. She’s a girl, standing in the center of a circus ring, staring up at the top of the tent, waiting for a flight that isn’t going to come. The trapeze isn’t lowered, and Jin isn’t there, waiting for her. Instead, the shadows just shift in the wind and the absence of sound fills the tent. 

“Hey,” Mai calls out, following her to the center of the ring. “Are you okay?” 

Ty Lee looks over at her, and there’s something impossible to identify on her face. It’s there for only a flicker of a moment, before she smiles again and it disappears. “I’m fine.” 

“I know that look,” Mai murmurs. She reaches Ty Lee, putting a hand out for her to take, if she’d like. “You don’t have to pretend. Not with me.” 

Ty Lee bites her lip, looking at Mai with wide eyes. The dimmed light of the tent turns her eyes a darker shade of gray, one that seems to glitter in the nighttime. She smiles, eyes just a little bit wet. She takes a deep breath, and takes Mai’s hand. She’s trembling, just a little bit. 

“Do you think I’d be allowed to go on the trapeze?” Ty Lee asks, looking away from Mai and back upwards again. “If I asked?” 

Mai swallows, not answering. She knows the answer is probably no, but she doesn’t want to be the one to break it to Ty Lee. She watches her; the way the shadows shift over the curve of her jawline, the way that her lips gloss over in the small spots of light, the way her eyes run over the ceiling, tracking the lines of the trapeze structure. 

It’s set up for the group routine, since the partner routine had been fully cut out. After Ty Lee fell, Joo Dee decided that enough was enough and drew the line at the more dangerous stunts that the circus pulled. The partner routine that Jin and Ty Lee had done was too complicated for any of the other trapeze artists to step into, and Joo Dee wouldn’t hear one word of just making them figure it out along the way so the routine had just been cut. The last time Mai had seen him, Ozai had been fuming as Joo Dee got in her car and drove away for the last time. Half of Mai thinks that Ozai is going to do something more dangerous and more successful, just to spite Joo Dee. 

“I don’t think so,” Mai says softly, looking at Ty Lee. She’s still staring at the trapeze platforms, where the people she’s worked with for years will be standing in a few hours. Where they’ll be performing in a way that Ty Lee can’t do, in a way that she might never be able to do again. Physical therapy can only do so much, and working on a trapeze qualifies as a hindrance to recovery. 

“Right,” Ty Lee says, taking a breath. She drops Mai’s hand, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself. “I didn’t think so.” 

“I’m sorry,” Mai tells her, and it’s genuine, but falls flat anyways. Ty Lee just shrugs, and Mai tries again. “It’ll be okay, though.” 

“Right,” Ty Lee says again. She looks upwards, and Mai can see her lip tremble just before she bites down on it. Finally, she just mutters, “There’s no point in me being here.” 

Mai swallows. She thinks the same thing, has been thinking it since Ty Lee first suggested visiting, but she doesn’t want to admit it. She doesn’t want Ty Lee to give up so easily. Not when they had gotten all of the way here already. 

“You can watch the show tonight,” Mai suggests, “even if you won’t be able to perform.” 

Ty Lee nods, dropping her hands to her sides and taking a deep breath, recalibrating. “I can do that. I’m excited to see you perform again, and to see Jin. I can’t believe she really lets you throw knives at her.” 

Mai chuckles under her breath, looking around the ring, half expecting Jin to show up at the mention of her name. “I told her you were coming today, I’m sure she’ll be excited for you to see her. She’s gotten a lot better at being entertaining while I shift the sets.” 

“Oh?” 

Mai nods. “You remember how Natsuko would rile up the crowd, dancing and juggling knives and things? Jin has figured out how to look like she knows what she’s doing. It’s very exciting.” 

“I can’t wait to see it,” Ty Lee tells her, and Mai can tell that she’s not lying. She really is excited, even if she’s sad, too. 

“I’m excited too,” Mai says. She turns around, getting ready to leave the ring. “You want to come start getting set up with me?” 

But Ty Lee isn’t answering, isn’t making any move to follow. When Mai turns around to look at her, she’s moving towards the ladders at the side of the ring that lead up to the platforms. It’s where the group trapeze routine starts, where they begin their jumps. The first will leap from the platform, head over heels, and catch the bar. Ty Lee, moving towards the ladder, seems to want to be doing the same thing. 

It’s then that Mai remembers Ty Lee used to be in a troupe with her six sisters and her parents. She was a part of a group routine— she knows how to use this stand, she knows the right way to move in order to flip and catch the bar while the music plays. Her head, at least, knows this routine, knows what it's doing. But her body, all of that muscle memory, has forgotten the right way to move. 

“Ty Lee,” Mai calls out, walking towards her. She’s trying not to sound too sad about it, too regretful about it, but she knows that what Ty Lee is hearing is pity. 

Ahead of her, Ty Lee is fully ignoring her. She reaches the ladder, and starts climbing. She’s making her way up as fast as she can, rung by rung, and doesn’t seem to care that she’s getting up higher than any physical therapist would ever recommend. She doesn’t seem to care about Mai standing below her, calling out her name. 

“Please,” Mai calls out, looking up at her. Ty Lee is slowing down, getting more and more tired the farther that she moves upwards. “Come down, please.” 

Ty Lee stops, swallowing, and then she looks down. She looks down, and she freezes. She’s not as high up as she usually would have been, if things were normal. But still, she’s reached a height that Mai isn’t willing to go up to. And she freezes. As if she’s afraid. 

“Come down,” Mai yells again, and she knows that, this time, Ty Lee might actually listen. She can see the slight tremble in her grip. She can see something akin to fear in the way that she clings to the ladder. It doesn’t make sense, not for Ty Lee, not for someone as fearless and brave as her. Not for someone who has grown up in the air, who seems to have been born for this. Not for someone who had been such a brilliant trapeze artist. 

But it does make sense for someone who has fallen. It makes sense for someone who was dancing 40 feet in the air and then hit the ground. It makes sense for someone who lost everything when she climbed up too high and then fell. 

Now, Mai realizes, that applies to Ty Lee. Having fallen that far, having broken as much as she did, it made sense. Ty Lee stills halfway up the ladder, and Mai can tell that she isn’t going to get any higher than that. 

“Come down,” Mai repeats, but this time it’s not a command or a request. It’s an excuse. Ty Lee can blame it on her, pretending that it’s not about fear, it’s about obedience. Though maybe those are two sides of the same coin. 

Either way, Ty Lee takes a visible breath, shoulders heaving as she squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again, she takes the next step down. She climbs down slowly, refusing to look at the ground. It’s a technique she learned from her family, Mai guesses, to never look below, not when you were so high up. To never think about what you could lose. 

“Hey,” Mai says quietly, reaching upwards as soon as Ty Lee comes within reach. She puts a hand to Ty Lee’s shoulder, holding closely while Ty Lee steps down the last rung. “You okay?” 

“No,” Ty Lee says, her voice cracking. It’s a heart wrenching sound, and Mai can’t help but want to cry when she hears it. She can’t help but hate the world just a little bit. “I—” 

She stops. There aren’t words, and Mai knows it. She understands, at least as much as she can be. 

“Come here,” Mai whispers, holding her hands out. “I’ve got you.” 

Ty Lee nods, letting Mai pull her closer. She buries her head at Mai’s shoulder, letting silent tears soak into her shirt rather than stain her own cheeks. It’s a quiet crying, barely there. But it’s there, and Mai knows it. She can feel her heartbeat, going too fast and too high.

“I’m here,” Mai murmurs again, into the top of Ty Lee’s head. 

She’s not sure how much of it Ty Lee hears, or how much she wants to hear in the first place. But she says it anyways, again and again and again. She kisses the top of Ty Lee’s head, just barely, for a moment, a brush of the lips. She can feel, for half a second, Ty Lee’s smile. 

But it’s only there for a flash of a moment, and then Ty Lee goes quiet again. She wraps her arms around Mai’s waist, holding her as tight as Mai has her own arms around Ty Lee’s neck. They’re entwined with each other in an intimate kind of way, in a way that can’t be explained in words— it’s a kind of feeling, a kind of color, a kind of sky, a kind of blade, a kind of flying. Mai kisses the top of her head again, and then looks out at the rest of the ring. At the curtain entrance, she catches just the briefest glimpse of Jin leaving the tent.


	21. Chapter 21

Azula finds them as Mai and Ty Lee walk backstage. Mai half wants to drop Ty Lee’s hand when Azula comes near them, thinking only of their conversation in the hospital, but she doesn’t. She cares more about holding onto Ty Lee than she cares about what Azula thinks. There are worse things in the world than the way Azula looks at her when she sees them. 

“Have you seen Jin?” she asks, her voice steady. She’s glaring, but in that kind of way you would only notice if you knew her. Her hair, usually so tightly pulled back, is getting frizzy at the side of her head, and Mai wonders when the last time Azula had looked in a mirror or slept was. She didn’t know what was going on in her family, but it was clearly nothing good. 

“Is she gone?” Ty Lee asks. She’s frowning, glancing between Mai and Azula, not quite sure what she’s looking at. “I wanted to see her before the show.” 

Azula shrugs. “She’s MIA. Hasn’t checked in, and the gates open in an hour. I’m beginning to think that she’s not going to show up. Mai, have you seen her?” 

Mai shakes her head, not wanting to mention the moment she had seen Jin leaving the tent. That felt like something secret, like something that Jin would want anyone to know. Like she was running away, and she didn’t want anyone to follow. 

It’s then that Mai realizes what Jin had done. What she had given them, and what she had taken. 

“She’s not coming, is she?” Mai asks quietly, looking at Azula. 

“Probably not,” Azula says, shrugging. Then she looks at Mai for a long moment, silent as Mai locks eyes with her. “But the show must go on, you know that.” 

Mai stares at her, tilting her head. She keeps her face stone; there’s no room here for mistakes. There’s no room here to make Azula think of any idea worse than what she’s already come up with— and she’s clearly already coming up with a plan. Azula always has a plan. 

“What do you mean?” Mai asks. Quiet, but hard. Silent, but angry. 

“Well,” Azula says, smiling. “I was just thinking about how Ty Lee hasn’t been able to work in a while, and she must miss performing.” 

“No,” Mai says immediately, at the same time as Ty Lee says, “Wait—” 

Azula shrugs again, crossing her arms. “It’s just an idea.” 

“I’m not throwing knives at Ty Lee,” Mai declares. She’s trying to leave no room for argument, trying to keep any form of power in this situation, but Ty Lee is on the verge of smiling. “No.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” Ty Lee says, looking over at Mai. “I can take a few knives. You know I’ve felt worse.” 

Mai shakes her head, a sinking pit growing in her stomach. She was beginning to lose any idea of how to get out of this, how to save Ty Lee. But with the way that Ty Lee and Azula were looking at her, there were no more arguments to be had. Ty Lee was her own person, and she was a brave, headstrong person, who could take a few knives. She’s felt worse, and Mai does know it. But that doesn’t mean she has to like it. 

“This is a terrible idea,” Mai says, looking between the two others and hoping that anyone might see reason for just one moment. 

Azula smiles at her, moving her hands to her waist, putting her weight onto one leg. “You said you weren’t going to get distracted.” 

Mai goes quiet at that, suddenly swallowing down anything else she has to say. Ty Lee frowns, not quite in the loop on that particular conversation, but Mai doesn’t look at her. She can’t look at her. If she looks, she’ll see her, and she’ll get distracted. Mai has _feelings_ now, and that’s messing everything up. 

“Fine,” Mai mutters, turning away as she says it. “Ty Lee, come on, we’ll get some practicing in before we start in an hour.” 

Ty Lee grins at the two of them, and Mai sighs. There was no way out of this; she would just have to be careful. She would just have to stay focused, make sure her eyes stayed on the board, on the knives in her hand. She would just have to keep herself from having a heart attack. 

She’s been throwing knives for a few years now, and she knows that she’s good at it. She knows that she can do it well, and she hasn’t been off the mark in anything recently. She’s been perfect, and she knows that that’s a problem. She knows that that’s how people get hurt— Zuko and Ty Lee are just two examples of that. She can’t get too confident. But going into this, throwing knives at Ty Lee, isn’t about being confident. Mai is the opposite of that— she’s terrified. 

But she also didn’t have a choice. So she pulls out the set, and she shows Ty Lee the right places to stand and move, and how to strap herself into the wheel. To her credit, Ty Lee takes it all in stride. She doesn’t complain about any of it, doesn’t seem afraid of anything that she’s going to have to do.

Mai gets so distracted making sure that Ty Lee knows how to safely stand in the right place and how to make sure she doesn’t get hurt in some way other than the knives that she runs out of time. Their hour is up before Mai can pull out her knives and practice with Ty Lee standing at the block. She’s forced to put her set back to the side and let the rest of the circus take over until her act— the audience floods into the stands and stays there, despite Mai’s prayers that they would disappear. 

“You ready?” Ty Lee asks, bumping her shoulder against Mai’s shoulder to get her attention. 

Mai looks over at her, running her eyes over the outfit that she’s wearing. It’s a modified version of the leotard that she wore when she was at the trapeze, and while she looks beautiful, all Mai can focus on is the fact that she’s only wearing that outfit because Mai is about to throw knives at her. However skilled either of them are, there was always room for mistakes that Mai is terrified of making.

“No,” Mai says honestly, looking away. 

Ty Lee nods, watching the acts from the same backstage place that Mai usually stands at. They’re the next act performing. 

“Are you ready?” Mai asks, not looking over. She doesn’t really know what the answer is, and she isn’t sure that she wants to know. She isn’t sure that it’s something good to hear, right before they go on. 

Instead of shrugging her off and making things worse, though, Ty Lee just turns to her and smiles. “I’m ready.” 

“How can you possibly be ready?” Mai asks miserably, refusing to meet her eyes, however much Ty Lee was looking at her. “I’m about to throw knives at you for entertainment, and you’re just going to have to stand there and take it.” 

Ty Lee reaches out, touches the tips of her fingers to Mai’s chin and turns her so that they can look each other in the eye. She rests her hand against Mai’s cheek, her palm cold, but fitting perfectly against the cut of Mai’s jaw. 

“I’m ready,” she says, “because I trust you.” 

Mai stares at her. It takes a moment to listen to those words, to understand them. Trusted isn’t something that Mai has ever applied to herself before. But here is Ty Lee, pressing a kiss to her cheek before the lights turn on and they go out into the ring. 

Mai turns her stage face on without thinking about it, without trying to analyze what Ty Lee had said. There was no point in thinking about this. She had to stay focused. No distractions, she had told Azula, and she planned to make good on that promise.

They grin and wave at the audience, Ty Lee doing some kind of brief dance that makes someone in the stands at the left cheer loudly. Mai resists the urge to roll her eyes, and instead pulls a knife from her sleeve to wave around. It’s a sharp blade, one that glints in the light when she waves it in the right direction. The shifting spotlights find her and Ty Lee, setting themselves on the block and Mai’s position. She readies herself, and the music plays.

It’s not a song she chose, nor one that she particularly likes, but it brings up the mood. It makes things dramatic, and the more dramatic something was, the more likely people were to enjoy it, to want to pay for it, or even to come back. Though Mai wasn’t exactly the end all be all of the carnival, she knew that she had to impress them. 

But first, she had to throw a knife. She had to look Ty Lee in the eyes, twenty feet from her, and throw a knife, and just trust in her own throwing arm. For a moment, staring at Ty Lee, Mai doesn’t think she can do it. She holds the knife in her hands, twirling it between her fingers to get a feel of the blade. Then she looks up, and Ty Lee nods at her. _I trust you,_ she had said. 

Mai throws the knife. 

It cuts through the air, splitting open the wind, and Mai’s breath bleeds with the speed of it. She inhales sharply, trying not to close her eyes. She watches everything in slow motion, like this has all been a dream and Ty Lee is fine, flying on a trapeze, and Mai is just watching from the sidelines. But it isn’t a dream, it’s a reality, and the knife flies through the air to land in the cork of the board behind Ty Lee stands. It’s a perfect throw, and Ty Lee doesn’t even flinch. She stands there, smiling at Mai with something real rather than something performative. It’s how Mai knows that she can get through the performance. It’s how she knows that they’re going to make it through— because in the face of these knives, Ty Lee stands perfectly still. 

It’s how Mai knows she’s truly in love. It’s more than a puppy love, more than a young love, more than a moment in time. It’s a forever kind of thing. The kind of thing that doesn’t go away, no matter how many disasters happen in a year. The kind of thing that, when the world ends, Mai won’t be afraid, as long as Ty Lee is there. 

She throws the next knife, and it hits its mark. Ty Lee smiles wider as someone cheers in the audience, as people stamp on the stands, as the lights shift. It’s knife after knife, and smile after smile, and cheer after cheer, and they go through the performance perfectly. Ty Lee is a natural born performer, something that Mai has always known but never really seen until now, when she manages to rile up the audience and keep them entertained in a way that even Natsuko hadn’t been able to do. 

By the time that the show is over— at least Mai’s part is over— they’re both sweaty and gross and smiling. 

“That was amazing,” Ty Lee breathes, looking at Mai as they rush backstage. She’s breathing hard, but it’s the good kind of exhilaration. Mai understands it perfectly well— the adrenaline rushes through her arms in a way that it hasn’t in a long time. 

“You were amazing,” Mai says, turning towards her. 

They’ve left the backstage of the tent, and made their way outside. Their performance was done until bows, so they had enough time to take a break away from the tent. Mai leads the two of them to the picnic table where they had met, and sits down on top of it. Ty Lee joins her, sitting at the bench part, looking up at her.

“If I never get on a trapeze again,” Ty Lee says, “I’d like to learn how to throw knives. Or maybe I’ll learn to fight with a sword. A katana or some sort.” 

Mai nods, reaching her hand down to massage at Ty Lee’s shoulder. “That sounds like a great idea to me. There’s a group I know, that trains people in things like that.” 

“Oh?”

“The Kyoshi Warriors,” Mai says. She takes her hand away, leaning back on her palms on the table. “It’s where a lot of women learn martial arts. The girl in charge worked with me in the other circus I was in.” 

Ty Lee hums some noncommittal noise, sighing slightly. Mai can hear the longing in her voice, the part of her that missing flying. But there’s something new there, too. Some kind of hope. Mai isn’t sure if that’s what Azula had intended to give them, but she knows that it’s something they now have. 

“Thank you,” Ty Lee says quietly.

“I didn’t do anything,” Mai says, frowning. “It’s just the name of a martial arts group.” 

Ty Lee shakes her head, tugging at her braid and looking away. She stares out into the woods, into indecipherable shadows. 

“Not for that, though that performance was amazing and I’ll definitely be following up on that group,” she says. “I meant for everything. For being here for me.” 

There’s a moment of silence where Ty Lee looks at her, head tilted, eyes soft, honest. Then Mai smiles, a genuinely wide smile, the kind that takes up her face and makes her cheeks glow. “It’s my pleasure, you know. I want to be here.” 

“And I— I want you here,” Ty Lee says. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of my life, not if I can’t be on the trapeze, but… I do want you there. Wherever I go.” 

Mai grins, her cheeks heating up, her heart beating faster than a knife can fly. “I want to be there.” 

“Glad we can agree,” Ty Lee says, laughing quietly. She stands up, and for a moment Mai thinks she’s going to leave, but instead she just turns around to join Mai in sitting on the table. She leans closer, bumping their shoulders together. “You know, Mai, I think I’m just a little bit in love with you.”

Mai looks over at her. Her lips hurt from smiling, and it’s a strange but welcome feeling. “You know, Ty Lee, I think I’m just a little bit in love with you, too.” 

Maybe, Mai thinks to herself, a little bit of distraction is okay. Maybe being brave isn’t about giving up on fear. It’s about getting up even when there’s a chasm underneath you. It’s about flying when there’s no one to catch you. Not about pretending there’s no other choice, but making a choice to be brave, to be strong. To be a little bit distracted from the safe things. 

Mai, for the longest time, didn’t know what that was like. Now, she looks at Ty Lee and decides that she’s going to be brave enough to love her. Brave enough to hold her hand. Brave enough to kiss her. Brave enough to tell her. Never is a hard word, but maybe bravery, bravery and Ty Lee, are things she’s never going to lose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and the end. 
> 
> again, a shoutout to the betas and artists who worked on this, who i could not be more grateful for, and a thank you to everyone who read this far♡


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